After last night's debacle, two of my buddies were debating Huet, with one claiming he's lost his confidence and the other saying that he was just bad.
They are both right. And in both cases, it's pretty clear he's doneski.
Once, Huet was a good enough goalie to consistently finish in the top of the league in GAA. He was good enough to warrant a$5.6M a year deal from a front office that had Scotty Bowman. Huet is a talented goalie. He's shown for a long time that he can get it done in the NHL.
But goalies, like closers in baseball, are SO about the mental. And Huet's clearly lost the mental. And that has made him into a bad goalie. A very bad one. Another buddy of mine pointed out that Huet's save percentage since Christmas is a shockingly horrible .869. Shockingly horrible.
This near the playoffs, after struggling that much for so long, following such a meltdown, Huet has now officially got to be the back-up. Only an injury can bring him minutes in the playoffs. That's where we're at - Huet as our franchise goalie is a concept that finally needs to be buried. And I'll admit I was one of the last guys still holding on to that concept. No longer.
So where's the blame go? First to the Hawks front office, who somehow didn't know (and still might not) a very simple hockey concept - that there are only a few "great" goalies worth giving a ton of money. If you can't get ahold of one, then you shouldn't be paying your goalie much. Just take your chances with the best guy you can get for a reasonable price, because the odds are just as good that he'll get it done as some non-superstar who you have to pay big money to.
Where did I come across this theory? From the multiple damn cup winning Detroit Red Wings GM. I think their track record suggests there's some credence to this belief. And as I showed in one of my last postings, the goalies who bring their teams to the Finals are a very mixed bag - not at all a list of the very best (or highest paid) goalies in the game every year.
Had the Hawks given some other vet $3M for two years, this sort of meltdown wouldn't be a big issue. Sure we'd be looking at an untested Niemi in the playoffs, but again, there's no rule that says an untested rookie can't get the job done. We're still in prime position to take the #1 seed in the West. We've still got a roster well capable of winning it all.
As for that lower cost veteran alternative having a similar meltdown as Huet is now? We'd have chalked that up to a small risk that didn't pay off as expected, but was offset by Niemi working out decently well. Huet was a solid back-up last year, playing a role in motivating Khabi to rediscover his game and this year taking the pressure of Niemi as he developed into a possible #1. That's something some middling veteran could have pulled off. And come this off-season, that middling vet would be on his way to another team, no harm done during his two-year stay in Chicago.
Instead, that contract has upped the expectations on Huet and will soon handcuff the franchise in an off-season where the payroll is already far overspent. All because the Hawks front office gave $5.6M for 4 years to a guy who'd never started even HALF of his team's games and never won a playoff series. Really??
The second part of the blame? JQ. As a hockey coach, you've got to know that confidence and rhythm are the two most crucial ingredients to goalie success, at least on the pro level. And you've got to do everything you can to foster those things. Instead, JQ played musical starters all year long, giving neither goalie a chance to settle into a flow. It's hard enough on the Hawks goalies in-game, as they don't see a lot of shots to get comfortable against.
But JQ made it all the worse by not giving either goalie a definite role. Thus neither got into a physical rhythm, neither got used to playing the bulk of the games. Neither got to see as many teams, players, and action as possible.
But it also didn't allow the goalies to mentally settle into what's demanded of them. Most pro athletes do better when they know their place. For a #1 goalie, that means I'm coming to the rink every day and backstopping this team - good days, bad days, whatever it is, I'm the last line and will have to do everything I can to carry us. I'm not just thinking about this next chance, this next period, this next game. I'm thinking about the whole course of the season, knowing that I'm gonna be in this net for this team every time it matters.
Also important is establishing your other goalie in the secondary role. I'm coming to the rink every day and finding ways to stay sharp for when they need me. I'm going to be a student of the game and mentally develop a way to gain experience and insight while not on the ice. I'll play when the schedule gets heavy and will just be expected to keep our team in the game. And if an injury or other issue comes up with our #1, I'll be ready to take the reigns.
Those are two totally different approaches and demand two totally different things from a goalie. Having guys successfully fill both is important to any pro team. But JQ didn't allow either Huet or Niemi to settle into either role. Instead, neither really knew what was to be expected from them beyond the next announced starter. Even that meant nothing - any signs of trouble, they knew JQ would pull them in a heartbeat. And who knew when they'd get back out there. Next game? Next week? Next month?
Pitchers, QBs, point guards - the lone players responsible for their team in each of these sports faces very similar challenges. And in each case, as with goalies, it's common knowledge that they will do better if they know they'll be getting the bulk of the opportunities. That they'll be judged by a long stretch of play in which they can settle in to a rhythm, work past challenges, and play out of slumps. They can't be looking over their shoulder, wondering if each mistake will be the last straw, and never knowing what tomorrow will bring.
The Hawks were having a great season, with little pressure on them to win any particular game when the goalie situation started to get murky. JQ had the luxury of sticking with those defined roles and creating the environment needed for goalie success. But instead he went in the exact opposite direction and established nothing but doubt and uncertainty in both of his netminders. That severely lessened the chances that either would have the success we all hoped. And the proof is in the pudding - these dudes both had flashes of great things early in the season and now both are looking suspect. Obviously Huet is beyond suspect - he seems shattered.
Finally, of course, Huet has to share some of the blame. He had opportunities this year and last to establish himself behind a very good defensive team. In neither case did he do so. He was solid last year, but not great. In an open competition, he lost out to Khabi. Then this year Huet was given the #1 slot, sure with a short leash, but it was his to lose. And he went ahead and lost it. All of this would never have come about if Huet could have just been solid. He didn't need to carry his team, he had room for error, but he had to not be noticeably bad. But Huet couldn't even manage that.
So now, like last year, Huet's the NHL's most expensive back-up goalie. Who knows, maybe it won't matter. Maybe Niemi is up to the challenge. He's had plenty of good nights and shown himself capable of coming through in heated situations - while shoot-out skills themselves don't perfectly translate to playoff success, the mental ability to elevate your game in those situations most certainly does. If Niemi can play solidly, giving this team a chance to win every night, then for this year, Huet's horrible play will not have been a problem.
But next year? There it becomes a major problem. My hope was always that short of winning us the Cup, Huet would at least do well enough to re-establish his value to where he became tradeable. Unfortunately he's gone the other way - this guy is glued to the Hawks, at least through this off-season.
Sure, there's still hope. Injuries or inconsistency from Niemi next year (or even in the playoffs this year) could force Huet back into the #1 slot. From there he might just get hot and reestablish himself as a plus goaltender. That happens all the time in the NHL. All the time.
But most likely entering next season, the Hawks will face the very real possibility of having to burn $5.6M in cap space they absolutely do not have on a back-up goalie, something that shouldn't cost you more than a million or so.
Me? I'm farming Huet out and going with Crawford or some bargain vet as Niemi's back-up (or competition, depending on how the Finn does in the playoffs). That would save them the cap money, even if it would destroy any chance of Huet ever recovering his trade value. You can afford the $5.6M hit as a franchise, but you can't afford the $5.6M hit on the cap as a team.
Farming out Huet gives you a boatload more money to keep Sharp and Versteeg around, to get that much-needed 5th blueliner, to keep or replace guys like Madden, Ladd, Burish, Eager, and the Hammer, all of whom need new contracts this off-season.
For now though, we can lay to rest the goalie discussions (barring a multiple-game Niemi meltdown) and just sit back and hope the young Finn is ready. SecondCityHockey.com used this quote after Tuesday's shut-out victory over the Coyotes, from a commentator in their game thread, and I thought it was pretty hilarious and hopefully pretty portentous:
"Are you sure that's "Aunty" Niemi...Looked more like "Uncle" Niemi the way he just molested the Coyotes."
Friday, March 26, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Looking Back... and Forward (Part II)
Last week here I posted about the Johnsson-Barker deal and the Versteeg/Buff/Sopel/Huet non-deals as I looked back at the main Hawks stories of the last few months. Today, we look forward to what we can expect in the coming months.
Campbell's injury and its fallout
I'm not gonna weigh in on Ovechkin's hit because I only saw a couple of replays on the jumbotron shortly after. Some hits are clearly dangerous, some are clearly clean, and a lot fall in between, where they might just be terrible or harmless, but you can't quite make out for sure. I feel like this one falls in there.
Especially after seeing what a really nasty dirty hit looks like in the Wisniewski-Seabrook affair, I'm not feeling bitter at Ovi for what he did to our team - I just feel the Hawks caught some bad injury luck for only the second time in the past two years (losing Khabi in the Conference Finals being the other). Although, those who follow Ovechkin a bit closer have implied that this kind of thing is fairly common place with him. I heard Campbell say recently that he wouldn't accept Ovi's apology if he called to offer one, so maybe this story will play out come the Finals. We can hope.
As it is now, I'm just seeing bad injury luck, the first of its kind for us this year. Sure we lost Hossa, Bolland, and Burish for significant time this season, but all are back now and have plenty of time to get up to full speed come the playoffs. The Hawks aren't in that much different of a playoff seed as they'd have been if all three were healthy. Sure it'd have been nice to have Bolland and Hossa playing together all year, both to find their chemistry and to find the right third skater for the line. But there's still time for that and there's nothing wrong with having a second line of skaters with extremely fresh legs as we get deeper into the extremely long and trying playoff schedule.
Now - now we've got some real bad luck. As maligned as he's been, Campbell is one of the most valuable player's on the Hawks - 2nd on the blueline to Keith and maybe behind only Hossa, Kane, and Toews otherwise.
This is especially true given the absurd PT logged so far by Keith and Seabrook, the struggles of Seabrook, and the cluster-F in goal right now. Add in Seabrook and Johnsson's day-to-day status, and the Hawks are definitely being tested.
While Johnsson's addition allows the Hawks to keep a legit Top 4 collection of blueliners (when Seabrook and KJ come back, assuming by the playoffs at the very least), the fact was the Hawks needed him as a 5th defenseman to take the ice time pressure off of Keith & Seabrook and allow the third unit to help make up for the struggles of the first and the uncertainty in net.
I've read a few others starting to say it and I nodded my head vigorously when I did - Seabrook has been an absolute mess since he was named to the Olympic squad. Oddly, I thought the only solid play he's shown over the past three months was in Vancouver, where he held his own on ice with the very best.
But while wearing the Indian Head, lately Seabrook has been horrendous. It's gotten so bad that I'm starting to watch him expecting him to make mistakes... and then he goes ahead and do so! Back against Washington he had at least one f-up that lead to a goal, and another couple that were pretty glaring.
Is he wearing down? The word on Keith is that he's an absolute monster in the workout room and weathers the heavy ice time like no other. Is Seabrook just not as capable? That'd be surprising, given how Seabrook logged heavy minutes last year and then played his best hockey as the playoffs went on.
The exhaustion might be a factor of that long playoff run followed by another season of heavy minutes - remember, Seabrook had never before seen the playoffs. Maybe the extra two months screwed up his off-season schedule and he's paying the price now.
Or maybe it's just mental - guys just sometimes get off their game. There doesn't have to be a great explanation - Seabrook might just have lost his flow and as his struggles continue, he forces the issue more and compounds his poor play. We've all seen it happen plenty of times before.
Whatever the reason behind it, the fact is that something needs to be done to get Seabrook back into top gear. Even with Campbell around, Seabrook as a mediocre defenseman probably meant good night for our Cup chances. But with Soup gone, #7 has got to step it up.
Obviously, the concussion issues Seabrook is now facing do not help matters. Or maybe they will. Clearly I'd have preferred it not happened - as I said, it was the scariest hit I've ever seen in real life. But maybe some time away from the game will recharge and re-focus Seabrook. Hopefully the physical toll on his health was minimal, that the Hawks are just being cautious to make sure he's back to full go before they throw him back into the fire.
If Seabrook can come back feeling near 100%, maybe the time away ends up a silver lining to an ugly play. With the additional pressure of the coming playoffs and the thin blueline upping the demands on him, maybe Seabrook's switch if flipped again. Maybe, like in the Olympics, he needs the stakes to rise in order to get himself out of this slump. We can only hope.
If so, the Hawks might not be done just yet. First off, the loss of a player, especially a high end one, almost always looks worse on paper than on the ice. How many times have we seen a team lose a key player, only to continue to play well in his absence? I'm talking in any sport, at any level. Second, as I just mentioned, when Seabs and KJ are healthy, the Hawks still have four legit plus defenseman, which is what you need to win in the NHL.
And as I mentioned last week , Johnsson is uniquely qualified to help fill Soup's loss both because he's a Swede (and thus hopefully better able to pair with the Hammer) and because he's so multi-capable (allowing him to take up minutes on any unit). Soup's minutes on the power play? Johnsson can handle those. Or maybe JQ finds someone else (Hendry, Sharp, Buff?), then Johnsson can chew up minutes short-handed.
As for the third pairing, I definitely will miss having a highly capable guy like Johnsson to offset any questions about either Hendry or Sopel, and knowing we could go with whomever of the two looked the best. But for the time being, unfortunately Campbell's injury means we'll almost definitely be seeing both Sopel and Hendry playing significant minutes in the postseason, and doing so at the same time.
As I said last week, I fear the mistakes Sopel makes and how it could be killer in a tight series. But he's definitely a capable NHL blueliner and you can't deny how he gives everything of himself to kill penalties. Even aside the physical punishment, penalty killing is a valuable skill set and Sopel's got them. And it will help that Hendry, while still very raw, is a decently quick skater who can help cover for Sopel's slowness. It'll also help that neither will be too aggressive offensively, knowing their job is simply to ensure that they don't get scored on while they're on the ice.
I've also got some hope that a defenseman emerges from nowhere to be good - maybe it's this guy Boynton, a former All Star, who they acquired at the deadline and just called up from Rockford. Odds are low, but who knows - guys do come from out of nowhere to contribute all the time, especially in the hockey postseason. While the Hammer was a prospect instead of a journeyman, I don't think anyone, including the Hawks, expected him to so aptly fill a Top 4 spot last season, and yet he did. So fingers crossed something like that happens here.
One interesting angle that we've been treated to lately - using Buff on the blue line. Watching him skate there on Wednesday night (necessitated by Seabrook's injury and the lack of Campbell and Johnsson in the lineup), I realized what the issue is with Buff - he's a tweener. You find this in hoops a lot - a guy who isn't quite athletic enough to be a small forward but not quite big enough to be a power forward.
For Buff, he's clearly got skills that would work for both positions. Seeing him back on the blueline this past week, I realized he's a decent skater with the puck and moving forward. But his backward skating skills leave something to be desired, as does his understanding of positioning and playing his man. Sure some of that is rust - the guy hasn't been a regular defender for years - but some of it is just not there. And those are fundamental skills you have to have - if Buff can't skate and play the right position, he's gonna get torched too often.
So I get why the Hawks coaching staff saw decent forward skating skills, decent puck handling, a good shot, and that big body and thought he'd make for a hell of a power forward. But again, Buff's just doesn't have the right approach. And I think I'm getting why, having moved a bit between the blueline and a center spot in my rec leagues this season. Silly to compare the two, but on a lot of levels, hockey is always hockey, no matter where or how it's being played. And I think it's possible that Buff brings a defender's intensity level to the forward position.
As a blueliner, you get a lot more time where you just float. Offensively, often you're only role is to hang around back at the point and wait. Or on rushes, you are to hang back and be ready if the puck gets turned around. This creates a lot of time where you're not going balls out, but instead really dialing it back and surveying the scene in front of you. It's not a bad thing - it's a requirement of the position.
However, as a forward, you almost never stop going, especially in the offensive zone. This is even more true of the Hawks, a fast-skating, puck control team that is constantly cycling and attacking. But Buff doesn't have that kind of motor - he's still floating as he's done his whole career as a D man.
And the thing about intensity is that it's near impossible to turn on and off. Few people really have that skill - it's one of the rarest things I've ever seen in playing and watching sports. If you're playing a lackadaisical style, it's hard to instantly ratchet things up. So Buff's doing his little d-man float thing while he's playing forward and getting caught in that gear. I think it might be why he disappears on so many shifts and why he won't make an impact for games on end.
So what's the answer? I don't think it's using him on D - at this point, he's way too inexperienced and way too out of practice to get regular ice time for a team who expects to win the Cup. I've liked some things that I've seen of him back there, but come the high intensity of a playoff series, where you play the same team night-in and night-out, where every goal means so much, I just don't want to count on a guy who's been playing forward the past three seasons.
Instead, Buff is part of another Hawks' concern moving forward...
Finding minutes for 14 capable forwards with only 12 spots to go round
On the flipside of the loss of Campbell is the return of Burish, bringing the Hawks to full strength among their forwards. We'll see plenty of guys get nights off down the stretch with real and phantom injuries, but at some point JQ is going to have to figure out the best way to utilize these 14 guys. That includes knowing who should skate together as well as who shouldn't skate at all.
Because I know JQ's reading, let me offer my take:
1ST LINE - Toews, Kane, and Brouwer
Toews and Kane have proven they play amazingly together and that whomever is next to them will prosper. However, no player seemed to prosper as much, both in terms of increasing his worth and in how he makes the line bettter, than Brouwer. I've said all year that he turned me from one of his biggest detractors into one of his biggest supporters, forcing me to eat a boatload of crow along the way. Seeing what's happened after he's been removed from this line has only solidified that belief.
Brouwer gives you both the grinder and the opportunistic goal-scorer you need alongside the amazing playmaking chemistry Toews and Kane showcase every shift. He brings size, defensive skill, toughness, skill along the boards, and he can also light the lamp at a good clip. And maybe most important, you're getting the most out of Brouwer when you've got him on this line.
Seems like JQ agrees, actually. Of late Brouwer has been skating with the Kids and they've been doing a solid job of things. They aren't burying every chance, but they sure are creating a lot of them. JQ seems committed to keeping Kane and Toews together (as he should be - those guys work amazingly with one another), so here's hoping that Brouwer remains on that line for the remainder.
2ND LINE - BOLLAND, HOSSA, ???
I gotta be honest, I'm not sure the best person to put alongside these two. As I mentioned, that's probably the biggest negative of the Hawks injuries this season, before Campbell's occurred - that this second line hasn't come together. But a lot of times these things gel quickly. Mad Scientist JQ might try something crazy here and for whatever reason it clicks.
This line gelling might just be independent of the third skater - it could just be about Bolland and Hossa really learning how to take advantage of one another. That's not easy to do - Bolland's got to figure our how best to work off of Hossa, making sure to get him the puck as much as possible in the best way possible. But he's also got to be careful not to defer too much - a common mistake among lesser players skating with superstars.
Once those two do get it going, then you've got to find that third person who fills in all the blanks and capitalizes on their skills. Sharp is the obvious choice, easily the Hawks most talented and consistent option. He's a plus skater, plus shooter, decent playmaker, and solid defender. The question is will these guys all fit together? JQ is wondering that also, as he's currently got Sharp skating alongside Hossa and Bolland, with some decent results so far.
As is, they wouldn't have an obvious bruiser, though Hossa plays physical and Bolland is definitely a grinder. Hossa and Sharp are similar - plus scorers with good play-making skills. Would that mean they'd trip over each other or would that allow them to play off one another? Best case scenario seems to suggest these three together, as that gets your next 3 best skaters on the second line together.
But one reason I struggle with this decision is because there are some other alternative that might work, but also reason to think they wouldn't. Even if Sharp isn't the perfect fit, he might still be the best. Say you throw your best complimentary guy - Ladd - up here. Even if he does work, what are you left with on the third line? Madden between Versteeg and Sharp, but will that work as a checking unit? While all three guys can skate and play defense, and you'd have a nice bit of playmaking and scoring, you're missing size. Without size, could you be confident in this line matching up the other team's top line every shift?
To answer that, JQ might keep Ladd back on that checking line with Madden, but use Versteeg up on the second line. You still have a lack of a real bruiser on the 2nd line, but maybe put in a position where he's being asked to play off of a star might be what Versteeg needs to play within himself. Instead of trying to do to much, he might go back to trying to hustle and support, flashing his playmaking skills only to serve as a compliment to the offense that's running through Hossa.
Like with Brouwer on the top line, maybe to using Versteeg on the second line is the best way to maximize his value. I'm not saying this is the case, but if the Sharp option isn't clearly working, I'd like to see JQ at least allow Versteeg a trial here. Give him a run for 4-5 games, see if the line clicks. If not, put Sharp back out there and know that even if they don't gel completely, that any line with Bolland between Hossa and Sharp should be pretty good.
3RD LINE - MADDEN, LADD, ???
Madden obviously is centering this line, unless JQ decides to really shake it up and use Sharp at center (he did play very well there) on the 2nd line with Hossa and move Bolland back to the checking line. It's a possibility if that 2nd line isn't working and Bolland seems to be the problem. As a checking line center, Bolland is definitely capable. And given how banged up Madden is, skating with the fourth line wouldn't the worst thing, especially because it'd allow JQ to use him for face-offs and match-ups throughout the game.
But that's not ideal, as Sharp is best-served as a wing and the Hawks are looking their best when Bolland is playing well enough to be a legit #2. Still, it's nice to know the Hawks have these kind of options. That's thank mainly to Sharp, who's shown himself capable of doing just about whatever JQ asks of him.
After Madden, I like Ladd here because he brings a bit of size and does a little bit of everything. He's a solid defender, can skate, can score, can create - all the things you're hoping for out of a third liner. Plus, Ladd comes to play every night. He isn't always someone you notice, but given his role as a support player, that's not a bad thing.
Together Madden and Ladd give you some tenacity, some wheels, and a good defensive approach to the game. Who you pair with them depends on who you settle on for the second line. If Sharp's playing alongside Bolland and Hossa, I like Versteeg here. Again, maybe what Versteeg needs is a defined role - go skate with Madden and Ladd and shut down their top line. Use your speed, your defensive skills, and your grit to take their best skaters out of the game.
Again, lately this is what JQ's been doing. And the results have been great - this line has been getting chances left and right for the past week, seemingly creating scoring chances every shift. Given the solid teams they've been playing and their role as a defensive unit, these three have been making a real impact. I may just be hoping that JQ keeps them in this role for the duration.
However, if the second line falters and Versteeg is moved up, I've got no problem with Sharp on the third. Again - Sharp can succeed anywhere. The guy might have some preferences, but it doesn't show in his performance. Wing, center, top line, 4th line - the guy just goes out and skates his ass off. So if he ends up on the third line and is asked to play a shut-down role, I think Sharp will be great at it.
And just because Job 1 is defense, I still like the luxury of a checking line that can create some offense. Madden is at least capable, Ladd is opportunistic, and combined with either Versteeg or Sharp, this line would be a threat to score and score with some regularity. That's the beauty of both Versteeg and Sharp - they'd be fine defensively on a checking line, but they're also gonna instantly make their line offensively capable.
4TH LINE - BURISH, BUFF, EAGER
First, I've got to say that I feel great about the luxury of having Frasier as my 13th skater. He's shown himself a very capable 4th line center - he brings energy, toughness, solid skills, and is a good penalty killer. Knowing that if you lose a skater you can confidently plug him in is a real comforting thought.
Burish made his mark instantly upon return and come the playoffs, I expect him to be ready to center the third line. In doing so, he brings solid speed, decent skills, plenty of toughness and defensive work, and most of all, is one of the game's top pests. Alongside him, just like on last year's top 4th line in the league, is Eager, an underrated offensive player who's skating, hockey sense, and stick skills are a lot more than you'd expect out of a guy who can drop the gloves.
Finally, I LOVE Buff on this line. I think Buff needs this kind of motivation and direction. He's struggled to make much of himself as a scoring line option and I think he's ill-suited as a checking line option. But back on the 4th line, where his job would be to skate hard and hit people? That's the kind of thing that will bring out the best in Buff. He lacks focus and drive - so focus him on playing a role that requires only that he exhibit drive. Damn, two problems solved at once!
On top of that, Buff, Burish, and Eager have some decent offensive skills. Put them on the ice against the other team's 4th line, and they've got a real shot to make those subpar skaters look bad. They don't need to regularly score, just do so enough to swing a game or two and be a constant threat. Make the other coach uneasy about using his 4th line - force him to skate a normal line against the Hawks bottom line. That just means more minutes and more exhaustion in the always taxing battle that is the Cup Playoffs.
Where's that leave Kopecky? Drinking with Hossa after the game, which seemingly is the reason the Hawks brought him in. I'm not sure what the thought was on this guy. He hasn't been terrible, but he also has done nothing to make me see what would inspire the Hawks to add him to a group of forwards that already was extremely deep.
I can only guess they saw upside, because no way you commit money and ice time to a guy you're hoping is gonna be a 4th liner. We've got plenty of those, especially when you remember how solidly Bickell played this season. But I haven't seen any of that upside - sure Kopecky will have a decent game here or there, but even after a recent 2-goal outburst, he's still a -6, 2nd worst on the team (to Buff's -8). Frasier is the only other regular who isn't a positive.
Despite getting a few games on scoring lines (including with Hossa) and some time here and there on the power play, Kopecky has all of 6 goals, 4 of which came in two games. He's not overly physical, overly fast, overly skilled, nor overly energetic or grindy. And Kopecky certainly makes his share of mistakes, physical and mental.
My hope - the Hawks can find a taker for his $1.2M salary (for two years) this off-season. I'd much rather have Bickell and some other hungry kids at the league minimum than this guy. He'll have a nice resume, having skated with the Wings and now the Hawks - someone will want him, right?
What I'd like to see moving forward
It's pretty simple - I want to see JQ settle on some forward line combinations that maximize each player and the team as a whole, especially that 2nd line. I want to see Seabrook and KJ fully healthy, and both on their game, playing like Top 4 blueliners. I want to see some 3rd pairing emerge in the absence of Campbell, and I hope it doesn't include Buff (although I have been very impressed so far... I just can't believe he wouldn't be a weakness come the playoffs).
And I want to see JQ come up with a sure-fire strategy to be able to give both Huet and Niemi the opportunity to work their way into a real rhythm. So first one guy gets a real shot to take over - weeks on end of being the main workhorse. Then if he fails, the other guy still has time to establish himself before the playoffs.
With Huet missing some games of late, I guess I'm asking for JQ to stick with Niemi for the rest of March. There aren't any back-to-back games until the 31st, so all of those before should be Niemi's. See if he can show himself worthy of the #1. If so - keep working him in April, but spell in Huet to keep Niemi fresh.
If Niemi doesn't pass this March test, then April becomes Huet's, straight on through. 6 games in 10 days, just like a playoff series. See if the Frenchman has got it. If they both fail those tests? Well then you've just go to make a decision in the playoffs and hope you guessed right.
Get those lines and pairing straight, get a fairly quick recovery out of Campbell (current timeline haa him optimistically back for the 2nd round, pessimistically not until the Western Conference finals) and avoid some red hot squad in the first - I think that the Hawks should still be in good shape to capture the Cup.
Campbell's injury and its fallout
I'm not gonna weigh in on Ovechkin's hit because I only saw a couple of replays on the jumbotron shortly after. Some hits are clearly dangerous, some are clearly clean, and a lot fall in between, where they might just be terrible or harmless, but you can't quite make out for sure. I feel like this one falls in there.
Especially after seeing what a really nasty dirty hit looks like in the Wisniewski-Seabrook affair, I'm not feeling bitter at Ovi for what he did to our team - I just feel the Hawks caught some bad injury luck for only the second time in the past two years (losing Khabi in the Conference Finals being the other). Although, those who follow Ovechkin a bit closer have implied that this kind of thing is fairly common place with him. I heard Campbell say recently that he wouldn't accept Ovi's apology if he called to offer one, so maybe this story will play out come the Finals. We can hope.
As it is now, I'm just seeing bad injury luck, the first of its kind for us this year. Sure we lost Hossa, Bolland, and Burish for significant time this season, but all are back now and have plenty of time to get up to full speed come the playoffs. The Hawks aren't in that much different of a playoff seed as they'd have been if all three were healthy. Sure it'd have been nice to have Bolland and Hossa playing together all year, both to find their chemistry and to find the right third skater for the line. But there's still time for that and there's nothing wrong with having a second line of skaters with extremely fresh legs as we get deeper into the extremely long and trying playoff schedule.
Now - now we've got some real bad luck. As maligned as he's been, Campbell is one of the most valuable player's on the Hawks - 2nd on the blueline to Keith and maybe behind only Hossa, Kane, and Toews otherwise.
This is especially true given the absurd PT logged so far by Keith and Seabrook, the struggles of Seabrook, and the cluster-F in goal right now. Add in Seabrook and Johnsson's day-to-day status, and the Hawks are definitely being tested.
While Johnsson's addition allows the Hawks to keep a legit Top 4 collection of blueliners (when Seabrook and KJ come back, assuming by the playoffs at the very least), the fact was the Hawks needed him as a 5th defenseman to take the ice time pressure off of Keith & Seabrook and allow the third unit to help make up for the struggles of the first and the uncertainty in net.
I've read a few others starting to say it and I nodded my head vigorously when I did - Seabrook has been an absolute mess since he was named to the Olympic squad. Oddly, I thought the only solid play he's shown over the past three months was in Vancouver, where he held his own on ice with the very best.
But while wearing the Indian Head, lately Seabrook has been horrendous. It's gotten so bad that I'm starting to watch him expecting him to make mistakes... and then he goes ahead and do so! Back against Washington he had at least one f-up that lead to a goal, and another couple that were pretty glaring.
Is he wearing down? The word on Keith is that he's an absolute monster in the workout room and weathers the heavy ice time like no other. Is Seabrook just not as capable? That'd be surprising, given how Seabrook logged heavy minutes last year and then played his best hockey as the playoffs went on.
The exhaustion might be a factor of that long playoff run followed by another season of heavy minutes - remember, Seabrook had never before seen the playoffs. Maybe the extra two months screwed up his off-season schedule and he's paying the price now.
Or maybe it's just mental - guys just sometimes get off their game. There doesn't have to be a great explanation - Seabrook might just have lost his flow and as his struggles continue, he forces the issue more and compounds his poor play. We've all seen it happen plenty of times before.
Whatever the reason behind it, the fact is that something needs to be done to get Seabrook back into top gear. Even with Campbell around, Seabrook as a mediocre defenseman probably meant good night for our Cup chances. But with Soup gone, #7 has got to step it up.
Obviously, the concussion issues Seabrook is now facing do not help matters. Or maybe they will. Clearly I'd have preferred it not happened - as I said, it was the scariest hit I've ever seen in real life. But maybe some time away from the game will recharge and re-focus Seabrook. Hopefully the physical toll on his health was minimal, that the Hawks are just being cautious to make sure he's back to full go before they throw him back into the fire.
If Seabrook can come back feeling near 100%, maybe the time away ends up a silver lining to an ugly play. With the additional pressure of the coming playoffs and the thin blueline upping the demands on him, maybe Seabrook's switch if flipped again. Maybe, like in the Olympics, he needs the stakes to rise in order to get himself out of this slump. We can only hope.
If so, the Hawks might not be done just yet. First off, the loss of a player, especially a high end one, almost always looks worse on paper than on the ice. How many times have we seen a team lose a key player, only to continue to play well in his absence? I'm talking in any sport, at any level. Second, as I just mentioned, when Seabs and KJ are healthy, the Hawks still have four legit plus defenseman, which is what you need to win in the NHL.
And as I mentioned last week , Johnsson is uniquely qualified to help fill Soup's loss both because he's a Swede (and thus hopefully better able to pair with the Hammer) and because he's so multi-capable (allowing him to take up minutes on any unit). Soup's minutes on the power play? Johnsson can handle those. Or maybe JQ finds someone else (Hendry, Sharp, Buff?), then Johnsson can chew up minutes short-handed.
As for the third pairing, I definitely will miss having a highly capable guy like Johnsson to offset any questions about either Hendry or Sopel, and knowing we could go with whomever of the two looked the best. But for the time being, unfortunately Campbell's injury means we'll almost definitely be seeing both Sopel and Hendry playing significant minutes in the postseason, and doing so at the same time.
As I said last week, I fear the mistakes Sopel makes and how it could be killer in a tight series. But he's definitely a capable NHL blueliner and you can't deny how he gives everything of himself to kill penalties. Even aside the physical punishment, penalty killing is a valuable skill set and Sopel's got them. And it will help that Hendry, while still very raw, is a decently quick skater who can help cover for Sopel's slowness. It'll also help that neither will be too aggressive offensively, knowing their job is simply to ensure that they don't get scored on while they're on the ice.
I've also got some hope that a defenseman emerges from nowhere to be good - maybe it's this guy Boynton, a former All Star, who they acquired at the deadline and just called up from Rockford. Odds are low, but who knows - guys do come from out of nowhere to contribute all the time, especially in the hockey postseason. While the Hammer was a prospect instead of a journeyman, I don't think anyone, including the Hawks, expected him to so aptly fill a Top 4 spot last season, and yet he did. So fingers crossed something like that happens here.
One interesting angle that we've been treated to lately - using Buff on the blue line. Watching him skate there on Wednesday night (necessitated by Seabrook's injury and the lack of Campbell and Johnsson in the lineup), I realized what the issue is with Buff - he's a tweener. You find this in hoops a lot - a guy who isn't quite athletic enough to be a small forward but not quite big enough to be a power forward.
For Buff, he's clearly got skills that would work for both positions. Seeing him back on the blueline this past week, I realized he's a decent skater with the puck and moving forward. But his backward skating skills leave something to be desired, as does his understanding of positioning and playing his man. Sure some of that is rust - the guy hasn't been a regular defender for years - but some of it is just not there. And those are fundamental skills you have to have - if Buff can't skate and play the right position, he's gonna get torched too often.
So I get why the Hawks coaching staff saw decent forward skating skills, decent puck handling, a good shot, and that big body and thought he'd make for a hell of a power forward. But again, Buff's just doesn't have the right approach. And I think I'm getting why, having moved a bit between the blueline and a center spot in my rec leagues this season. Silly to compare the two, but on a lot of levels, hockey is always hockey, no matter where or how it's being played. And I think it's possible that Buff brings a defender's intensity level to the forward position.
As a blueliner, you get a lot more time where you just float. Offensively, often you're only role is to hang around back at the point and wait. Or on rushes, you are to hang back and be ready if the puck gets turned around. This creates a lot of time where you're not going balls out, but instead really dialing it back and surveying the scene in front of you. It's not a bad thing - it's a requirement of the position.
However, as a forward, you almost never stop going, especially in the offensive zone. This is even more true of the Hawks, a fast-skating, puck control team that is constantly cycling and attacking. But Buff doesn't have that kind of motor - he's still floating as he's done his whole career as a D man.
And the thing about intensity is that it's near impossible to turn on and off. Few people really have that skill - it's one of the rarest things I've ever seen in playing and watching sports. If you're playing a lackadaisical style, it's hard to instantly ratchet things up. So Buff's doing his little d-man float thing while he's playing forward and getting caught in that gear. I think it might be why he disappears on so many shifts and why he won't make an impact for games on end.
So what's the answer? I don't think it's using him on D - at this point, he's way too inexperienced and way too out of practice to get regular ice time for a team who expects to win the Cup. I've liked some things that I've seen of him back there, but come the high intensity of a playoff series, where you play the same team night-in and night-out, where every goal means so much, I just don't want to count on a guy who's been playing forward the past three seasons.
Instead, Buff is part of another Hawks' concern moving forward...
Finding minutes for 14 capable forwards with only 12 spots to go round
On the flipside of the loss of Campbell is the return of Burish, bringing the Hawks to full strength among their forwards. We'll see plenty of guys get nights off down the stretch with real and phantom injuries, but at some point JQ is going to have to figure out the best way to utilize these 14 guys. That includes knowing who should skate together as well as who shouldn't skate at all.
Because I know JQ's reading, let me offer my take:
1ST LINE - Toews, Kane, and Brouwer
Toews and Kane have proven they play amazingly together and that whomever is next to them will prosper. However, no player seemed to prosper as much, both in terms of increasing his worth and in how he makes the line bettter, than Brouwer. I've said all year that he turned me from one of his biggest detractors into one of his biggest supporters, forcing me to eat a boatload of crow along the way. Seeing what's happened after he's been removed from this line has only solidified that belief.
Brouwer gives you both the grinder and the opportunistic goal-scorer you need alongside the amazing playmaking chemistry Toews and Kane showcase every shift. He brings size, defensive skill, toughness, skill along the boards, and he can also light the lamp at a good clip. And maybe most important, you're getting the most out of Brouwer when you've got him on this line.
Seems like JQ agrees, actually. Of late Brouwer has been skating with the Kids and they've been doing a solid job of things. They aren't burying every chance, but they sure are creating a lot of them. JQ seems committed to keeping Kane and Toews together (as he should be - those guys work amazingly with one another), so here's hoping that Brouwer remains on that line for the remainder.
2ND LINE - BOLLAND, HOSSA, ???
I gotta be honest, I'm not sure the best person to put alongside these two. As I mentioned, that's probably the biggest negative of the Hawks injuries this season, before Campbell's occurred - that this second line hasn't come together. But a lot of times these things gel quickly. Mad Scientist JQ might try something crazy here and for whatever reason it clicks.
This line gelling might just be independent of the third skater - it could just be about Bolland and Hossa really learning how to take advantage of one another. That's not easy to do - Bolland's got to figure our how best to work off of Hossa, making sure to get him the puck as much as possible in the best way possible. But he's also got to be careful not to defer too much - a common mistake among lesser players skating with superstars.
Once those two do get it going, then you've got to find that third person who fills in all the blanks and capitalizes on their skills. Sharp is the obvious choice, easily the Hawks most talented and consistent option. He's a plus skater, plus shooter, decent playmaker, and solid defender. The question is will these guys all fit together? JQ is wondering that also, as he's currently got Sharp skating alongside Hossa and Bolland, with some decent results so far.
As is, they wouldn't have an obvious bruiser, though Hossa plays physical and Bolland is definitely a grinder. Hossa and Sharp are similar - plus scorers with good play-making skills. Would that mean they'd trip over each other or would that allow them to play off one another? Best case scenario seems to suggest these three together, as that gets your next 3 best skaters on the second line together.
But one reason I struggle with this decision is because there are some other alternative that might work, but also reason to think they wouldn't. Even if Sharp isn't the perfect fit, he might still be the best. Say you throw your best complimentary guy - Ladd - up here. Even if he does work, what are you left with on the third line? Madden between Versteeg and Sharp, but will that work as a checking unit? While all three guys can skate and play defense, and you'd have a nice bit of playmaking and scoring, you're missing size. Without size, could you be confident in this line matching up the other team's top line every shift?
To answer that, JQ might keep Ladd back on that checking line with Madden, but use Versteeg up on the second line. You still have a lack of a real bruiser on the 2nd line, but maybe put in a position where he's being asked to play off of a star might be what Versteeg needs to play within himself. Instead of trying to do to much, he might go back to trying to hustle and support, flashing his playmaking skills only to serve as a compliment to the offense that's running through Hossa.
Like with Brouwer on the top line, maybe to using Versteeg on the second line is the best way to maximize his value. I'm not saying this is the case, but if the Sharp option isn't clearly working, I'd like to see JQ at least allow Versteeg a trial here. Give him a run for 4-5 games, see if the line clicks. If not, put Sharp back out there and know that even if they don't gel completely, that any line with Bolland between Hossa and Sharp should be pretty good.
3RD LINE - MADDEN, LADD, ???
Madden obviously is centering this line, unless JQ decides to really shake it up and use Sharp at center (he did play very well there) on the 2nd line with Hossa and move Bolland back to the checking line. It's a possibility if that 2nd line isn't working and Bolland seems to be the problem. As a checking line center, Bolland is definitely capable. And given how banged up Madden is, skating with the fourth line wouldn't the worst thing, especially because it'd allow JQ to use him for face-offs and match-ups throughout the game.
But that's not ideal, as Sharp is best-served as a wing and the Hawks are looking their best when Bolland is playing well enough to be a legit #2. Still, it's nice to know the Hawks have these kind of options. That's thank mainly to Sharp, who's shown himself capable of doing just about whatever JQ asks of him.
After Madden, I like Ladd here because he brings a bit of size and does a little bit of everything. He's a solid defender, can skate, can score, can create - all the things you're hoping for out of a third liner. Plus, Ladd comes to play every night. He isn't always someone you notice, but given his role as a support player, that's not a bad thing.
Together Madden and Ladd give you some tenacity, some wheels, and a good defensive approach to the game. Who you pair with them depends on who you settle on for the second line. If Sharp's playing alongside Bolland and Hossa, I like Versteeg here. Again, maybe what Versteeg needs is a defined role - go skate with Madden and Ladd and shut down their top line. Use your speed, your defensive skills, and your grit to take their best skaters out of the game.
Again, lately this is what JQ's been doing. And the results have been great - this line has been getting chances left and right for the past week, seemingly creating scoring chances every shift. Given the solid teams they've been playing and their role as a defensive unit, these three have been making a real impact. I may just be hoping that JQ keeps them in this role for the duration.
However, if the second line falters and Versteeg is moved up, I've got no problem with Sharp on the third. Again - Sharp can succeed anywhere. The guy might have some preferences, but it doesn't show in his performance. Wing, center, top line, 4th line - the guy just goes out and skates his ass off. So if he ends up on the third line and is asked to play a shut-down role, I think Sharp will be great at it.
And just because Job 1 is defense, I still like the luxury of a checking line that can create some offense. Madden is at least capable, Ladd is opportunistic, and combined with either Versteeg or Sharp, this line would be a threat to score and score with some regularity. That's the beauty of both Versteeg and Sharp - they'd be fine defensively on a checking line, but they're also gonna instantly make their line offensively capable.
4TH LINE - BURISH, BUFF, EAGER
First, I've got to say that I feel great about the luxury of having Frasier as my 13th skater. He's shown himself a very capable 4th line center - he brings energy, toughness, solid skills, and is a good penalty killer. Knowing that if you lose a skater you can confidently plug him in is a real comforting thought.
Burish made his mark instantly upon return and come the playoffs, I expect him to be ready to center the third line. In doing so, he brings solid speed, decent skills, plenty of toughness and defensive work, and most of all, is one of the game's top pests. Alongside him, just like on last year's top 4th line in the league, is Eager, an underrated offensive player who's skating, hockey sense, and stick skills are a lot more than you'd expect out of a guy who can drop the gloves.
Finally, I LOVE Buff on this line. I think Buff needs this kind of motivation and direction. He's struggled to make much of himself as a scoring line option and I think he's ill-suited as a checking line option. But back on the 4th line, where his job would be to skate hard and hit people? That's the kind of thing that will bring out the best in Buff. He lacks focus and drive - so focus him on playing a role that requires only that he exhibit drive. Damn, two problems solved at once!
On top of that, Buff, Burish, and Eager have some decent offensive skills. Put them on the ice against the other team's 4th line, and they've got a real shot to make those subpar skaters look bad. They don't need to regularly score, just do so enough to swing a game or two and be a constant threat. Make the other coach uneasy about using his 4th line - force him to skate a normal line against the Hawks bottom line. That just means more minutes and more exhaustion in the always taxing battle that is the Cup Playoffs.
Where's that leave Kopecky? Drinking with Hossa after the game, which seemingly is the reason the Hawks brought him in. I'm not sure what the thought was on this guy. He hasn't been terrible, but he also has done nothing to make me see what would inspire the Hawks to add him to a group of forwards that already was extremely deep.
I can only guess they saw upside, because no way you commit money and ice time to a guy you're hoping is gonna be a 4th liner. We've got plenty of those, especially when you remember how solidly Bickell played this season. But I haven't seen any of that upside - sure Kopecky will have a decent game here or there, but even after a recent 2-goal outburst, he's still a -6, 2nd worst on the team (to Buff's -8). Frasier is the only other regular who isn't a positive.
Despite getting a few games on scoring lines (including with Hossa) and some time here and there on the power play, Kopecky has all of 6 goals, 4 of which came in two games. He's not overly physical, overly fast, overly skilled, nor overly energetic or grindy. And Kopecky certainly makes his share of mistakes, physical and mental.
My hope - the Hawks can find a taker for his $1.2M salary (for two years) this off-season. I'd much rather have Bickell and some other hungry kids at the league minimum than this guy. He'll have a nice resume, having skated with the Wings and now the Hawks - someone will want him, right?
What I'd like to see moving forward
It's pretty simple - I want to see JQ settle on some forward line combinations that maximize each player and the team as a whole, especially that 2nd line. I want to see Seabrook and KJ fully healthy, and both on their game, playing like Top 4 blueliners. I want to see some 3rd pairing emerge in the absence of Campbell, and I hope it doesn't include Buff (although I have been very impressed so far... I just can't believe he wouldn't be a weakness come the playoffs).
And I want to see JQ come up with a sure-fire strategy to be able to give both Huet and Niemi the opportunity to work their way into a real rhythm. So first one guy gets a real shot to take over - weeks on end of being the main workhorse. Then if he fails, the other guy still has time to establish himself before the playoffs.
With Huet missing some games of late, I guess I'm asking for JQ to stick with Niemi for the rest of March. There aren't any back-to-back games until the 31st, so all of those before should be Niemi's. See if he can show himself worthy of the #1. If so - keep working him in April, but spell in Huet to keep Niemi fresh.
If Niemi doesn't pass this March test, then April becomes Huet's, straight on through. 6 games in 10 days, just like a playoff series. See if the Frenchman has got it. If they both fail those tests? Well then you've just go to make a decision in the playoffs and hope you guessed right.
Get those lines and pairing straight, get a fairly quick recovery out of Campbell (current timeline haa him optimistically back for the 2nd round, pessimistically not until the Western Conference finals) and avoid some red hot squad in the first - I think that the Hawks should still be in good shape to capture the Cup.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Looking Back... and Forward (Part I)
Nice W for the Hawks last night. It's very early, but I'm starting to wonder if a bit of adversity is exactly what this team needed to break out of their morass. The Kings are a very good hockey team, we were coming off a tough game the night before, and we were playing with an AHL-quality defense. Yet we dominated the game and posted a shut-out.
If the Hawks can keep playing like this and seamlessly transition Johnsson, Seabrook, and eventually even Campbell back into the fold, we could all return to the same excitement level we had in December, when the team was making a mockery out of opponents left and right.
But for now, a lot has happened with the Hawks since early January when I was last posting regularly. So I've thrown together a two-parter to update you with my takes:
-Barker is dealt for Johnsson
"I believe it's jogging or yogging. It might be a soft 'J.' I'm not sure but apparently you just run for an extended period of time. It's supposed to be wild."
With this recent loss of Campbell (more to come on that next week), this move is looking even better than it did initially, and I was a big fan at the time. This is even more the case with the possibility of Seabrook missing extended time, especially if Johnsson can get back soon. And what's that prognosis, by the way? Manm I hate how cloak and dagger the freakin NHL is about their injuries. Fine, don't tell me what's wrong, but at least tell me for how long to expect to miss a guy... what the hell?!
I actually liked Barker a lot, but he was making too much money to be a 5th defenseman next year and for whatever reason had taken a step back this season. Even on the power play, which was his bread-and-butter last year, Barker was a non-factor. He's still young, but the Hawks need to win now and his step backward this year wasn't helping.
Though I do think he brought more size and physicality than most fans gave him credit for, but unfortunately Barker just wasn't making the impact he should have. I think he suffered from playing alongside the slow-footed Sopel instead of a more fitting, athletic d-man. But the fact is that both the Hawks and Barker were better off with him going somewhere new. Barker will now have a chance to develop into a plus blueliner, while the Hawks got the short term boost on D and a very solid prospect, to boot.
Johnsson has been around and can do a bit of everything, nothing particularly great, but all good enough to help. Again, the loss of Campbell and possibly Seabrook makes him even more valuable. As we've seen the last few nights - there's just such a difference between plus NHL defenders and journeyman AHL types. Also nice is that the veteran Swede will now likely be paired with his paisan the Hammer, which should help their chemistry. Given how little they've skated together before and what we'll be counting on from them (a strong 2nd unit behind Keith and Soper or a a recovering/struggling Seabrook), I'll take any advantage we can get.
And this young kid the Hawks got as part of the deal - Nick Leddy - supposedly is a pretty quick little defenseman who can really skate the puck. Given the speed and puck-control game the Hawks play, in a few years he might be a nice addition the blueline. Leddy is only 19 and playing his freshman year in Minnesota right now. I'm pretty pumped that Barker was enough of a trading chip to help us both now and later.
-Versteeg and Buff continue to wear the Indian Head.
Non-trades can often be as intriguing as trades. In the case of Versteeg, and to a lesser extent Buff, here was a case of the Hawks just not being blown away by an offer enough to part with a talented and valuable member of their current squad.
I'm glad that Versteeg is still a Hawk. I know he's gone through a pretty iffy stretch of late, and has been inconsistent in the past. But the kid has talent and still is in only his second season in the NHL. His play last year was no fluke - Versteeg was good enough to be one of the Top 3 rookies last season, all while playing for a Cup contender. You don't do that unless you're really bringing something to the table.
There is talk that like Barker, there's just not a place on this team for him, despite his talent. That I disagree with. With Barker, you were giving up a bit of defensive skill in addition to the salary hit for the luxury of his skills. Both of those were significant costs. With Versteeg, you aren't giving up much - he truly can do it all. You're just gonna battle a bit of inconsistency, but that happens with a lot of young players, especially highly skilled ones like Versteeg.
It'd have been silly to give up on him this early - I'm glad the Hawks haven't yet and I hope they don't during the Great Salary Cull of 2010. Versteeg brings a pair of rare gifts when his head is on right - great playmaking and plus defense. For that reason he should always have a spot on this squad. Sure JQ has to work to find him a spot that fits and to keep his confidence up and focus right, but I think it's worth it for all the great things Steeger can do when he's on his game.
As for Buff, the return we got for Barker has me very excited to see what this similar asset can bring. Like Barker, Buff's game is a bit unpolished, but his natural talents and unique abilities make him a rare and valuable piece. Like Barker, Buff will probably prosper in a new, less pressure-filled setting where he can settle into a decent scoring line and do his thing. Unlike Barker, though, I don't see Buff ever figuring it out and becoming a star.
To me, Buff just doesn't have it in the head and heart. I've been waiting for three seasons for this kid to play like the superstar he could be all game long, all season long. I thought a shot at Team USA would have made him a beast in the first half. Instead, Buff continues to disappear for long stretches and actually seems to be quietly regressing in his impact. He's still doing enough to have value around the league, he's still a big dude who can be menacingly physical when it suits him, and he's still putting up some decent numbers (16 G, 12 A).
But on a team that's dominatingly positive, Buff is a -8. On a team with playmakers galore, Buff's on pace to get about the same amount of goals he had the past two years. There was no pre-Olympic surge and there haven't even been that many "Buff came to play" nights, periods, or even shifts.
I still have hope for Buff making a significant impact this season (more to come on that shortly), but I'm now firmly decided that he has to go this off-season.
-Sopel and Huet continue to wear the Indian Head.
In the case of Huet and to a lesser extent Sopel, the reason for their continued presence on the Hawks is the opposite of Buff's and Steeg's - the Hawks couldn't find anyone willing to take on their salary without having to give up too much in addition.
With Sopel, there wasn't a huge motivation to move him - the Hawks respect his grindy way and love how he throws his body in front of shots as if his paycheck has a double-digit minimum bruise requirement. But the fact is on a fast, puck possession team like the Hawks, Sopel is not a good fit.
Sopel could be a nice value piece on a trapping, lockdown physical squad looking to steal 2-1 games. With the Hawks, Sopel's inability to either skate or handle the puck are constantly exposed. I'm just waiting for that horrendous turnover or untimely undressing that leads to a goal in the wrong moment of the playoffs.
With a salary of $2M this year and next, the Hawks would have preferred to move him and find a more suitable defenseman, but that probably wasn't a very likely possibility. There might have been a very slight upgrades, but probably not worth the cost.
Hence Sopel will remain a Hawk for the rest of the season. Fortunately, he's been playing well enough - even while miscast on this team - that he's re-established his trade value and should be fairly easy to offload this Summer. At that point Sopel will only have one year left at what is becoming a reasonable price for what he brings, if he's going to the right type of squad. And the Hawks can reinvest his money on a better fit for their 5th or 6th d-man.
Of course, now that we're down so many defensemen, Sopel's presence is shockingly a positive. Sopel was the guy they paired with Keith last night and he did a fine job of it. After missing nearly all of last year, he's redeveloped his confidence and really taken to his support role on this team. I still would like to see Hendry get the 6th blueliner slot when Campbell comes back, but in the meantime, I'm finally appreciative of Sopel's presence.
As for Huet, the Hawks couldn't have been more motivated to move him, but unfortunately two major hurdles stood in the way. The first is that the Hawks needed to find another goalie to replace him. Not a single goalie moved at the deadline, so it's safe to say this was a clear challenge for the front office.
The second and most obvious hurdle was Huet's contract, such an albatross only a year and a half after it was signed. A year and a half in which Huet's GAA has been a 2.53 (19th) and a 2.40 (10th). As good of a job as the Hawks front office has done, clearly that signing was a major, major mistake when so soon after it, and following such respectable performances, it's an anchor around their necks.
The simple reality is that the price it would have cost to find a team willing to take on Huet in addition to finding a team willing to part with a top flight goalie was just way too high, especially given what history has shown us. Go back to the lockout and check out the Stanley Cup finalists - the list of goalies doesn't read exactly as you'd expect:
06 Finals - Ward beats Roloson. Ward wasn't even the #1 for the Canes most of the year, while Roloson was 15th in the league in both GAA and Sv% - solid, but not dominant.
07 Finals - Giguere beats Emery. Giguere actually missed the first four games of the first round, but his backup Bryzgalov staked the Ducks to a 3-0 lead before Giggy came back and lead the Ducks to the Cup, his second impressive playoff run. Emery had a damn good season, but since has melted down and then not played in the NHL for a year, before returning to post a ho-hum performance this season.
08 Finals - Osgood beats Fleury. The Wings have no true #1, splitting between Hasek and Osgood before finally giving the nod to Hasek to start the playoff. That went terribly, Osgood stepped in and saved the day, and lead the Wings to another Cup. Fleury, up until this run, had been relatively unproven, although he was coming off a good regular season.
09 Finals - Fleury beats Osgood. Fleury doesn't even make the Top 20 in either GAA or Save percentage and is a big part of the reason the Penguins fire their coach in the final month of the season. Yet he's able to bounce back and lead his team to the promised land, besting multi-cup winner Osgood in doing so.
So what am I taking from this? Sure it helps to have a guy like Giguere, who's experienced and playing well. Or a guy like Emery or Fleury in 08, coming off a strong regular season. But it's clearly not a necessity. The majority of those goaltenders were unproven, coming off mediocre years, and/or not even their team's clear #1. Sounds a lot like the Hawks options right now, eh?
The most encouraging example of this was Osgood last year - the guy was 40th (of 46 qualifiers) in GAA and 44th in save percentage! Look at those numbers again. Yet he got the Wings to Game 7 of the Cup, handling the Hawks along the way (something studs Kipprusoff and Luongo couldn't do). Gives you a little more faith that Huet might just find the good after all?
And Osgood is no crazy outlier - reaching back before the lock-out, Khabibulin came off a poor regular season (21st GAA, 26th save %) only to stand on his head while backstopping the Lightning to the Cup. I mean he didn't just help his team to the Cup, he was the primary reason they won it. All after a middling season.
I know it's no fun watching the Hawks goaltenders look so damn shaky out there. It's no fun watching how JQ has completely mishandled them, refusing to commit to Huet, destroying both his confidence and his rhythm well before the situation demanded it. Not once has JQ let either goalie work through the struggles that all goalies, hell all athletes, will go through. And it's definitely no fun to see how the Hawks D has imploded in front of them, maybe both a cause and an effect of the poor play in the crease.
But it's not so bad that I'm freakin out like too many uneducated fans and unimaginative commentators. What has been completely lost in all of this is that Huet has a long track record as a plus goaltender in the NHL. Check out his year-by-year numbers and you find a ton of Top 10 finishes in the goalie stats. Yes, Huet's got nothing of a playoff resume, but neither did a lot of the guys on my list of Cup Finalists above.
And if Huet really can't get it together in time (or JQ doesn't let him), I'm not too freaked out about going with Niemi. He's not the savior everyone first thought he was, but the kid does seem to be at least capable. Given a long stretch of consecutive games behind a Hawks team that actually was dialed in as it should be, I can see Niemi being solid enough.
So sure it would have been great for some magical trade partner to bail the Hawks out of the Huet contract while some other magical partner threw them a proven, hot netminder ready to hoist the cup. But that wasn't even close to realistic possibility.
As it stands, the Hawks goaltending absolutely needs to get better. But if the defense would get their heads out of their asses and JQ would think longterm and develop a strategy for establishing a #1 by the playoffs, instead of by the next game, I could see either Huet or Niemi following the pattern established by many previous goalies of unexpectedly backstopping their teams to the Finals.
Monday - dealing with the Campbell injury, juggling 14 forwards in 12 starting spots, and what I'm hoping to see down the stretch.
If the Hawks can keep playing like this and seamlessly transition Johnsson, Seabrook, and eventually even Campbell back into the fold, we could all return to the same excitement level we had in December, when the team was making a mockery out of opponents left and right.
But for now, a lot has happened with the Hawks since early January when I was last posting regularly. So I've thrown together a two-parter to update you with my takes:
-Barker is dealt for Johnsson
"I believe it's jogging or yogging. It might be a soft 'J.' I'm not sure but apparently you just run for an extended period of time. It's supposed to be wild."
With this recent loss of Campbell (more to come on that next week), this move is looking even better than it did initially, and I was a big fan at the time. This is even more the case with the possibility of Seabrook missing extended time, especially if Johnsson can get back soon. And what's that prognosis, by the way? Manm I hate how cloak and dagger the freakin NHL is about their injuries. Fine, don't tell me what's wrong, but at least tell me for how long to expect to miss a guy... what the hell?!
I actually liked Barker a lot, but he was making too much money to be a 5th defenseman next year and for whatever reason had taken a step back this season. Even on the power play, which was his bread-and-butter last year, Barker was a non-factor. He's still young, but the Hawks need to win now and his step backward this year wasn't helping.
Though I do think he brought more size and physicality than most fans gave him credit for, but unfortunately Barker just wasn't making the impact he should have. I think he suffered from playing alongside the slow-footed Sopel instead of a more fitting, athletic d-man. But the fact is that both the Hawks and Barker were better off with him going somewhere new. Barker will now have a chance to develop into a plus blueliner, while the Hawks got the short term boost on D and a very solid prospect, to boot.
Johnsson has been around and can do a bit of everything, nothing particularly great, but all good enough to help. Again, the loss of Campbell and possibly Seabrook makes him even more valuable. As we've seen the last few nights - there's just such a difference between plus NHL defenders and journeyman AHL types. Also nice is that the veteran Swede will now likely be paired with his paisan the Hammer, which should help their chemistry. Given how little they've skated together before and what we'll be counting on from them (a strong 2nd unit behind Keith and Soper or a a recovering/struggling Seabrook), I'll take any advantage we can get.
And this young kid the Hawks got as part of the deal - Nick Leddy - supposedly is a pretty quick little defenseman who can really skate the puck. Given the speed and puck-control game the Hawks play, in a few years he might be a nice addition the blueline. Leddy is only 19 and playing his freshman year in Minnesota right now. I'm pretty pumped that Barker was enough of a trading chip to help us both now and later.
-Versteeg and Buff continue to wear the Indian Head.
Non-trades can often be as intriguing as trades. In the case of Versteeg, and to a lesser extent Buff, here was a case of the Hawks just not being blown away by an offer enough to part with a talented and valuable member of their current squad.
I'm glad that Versteeg is still a Hawk. I know he's gone through a pretty iffy stretch of late, and has been inconsistent in the past. But the kid has talent and still is in only his second season in the NHL. His play last year was no fluke - Versteeg was good enough to be one of the Top 3 rookies last season, all while playing for a Cup contender. You don't do that unless you're really bringing something to the table.
There is talk that like Barker, there's just not a place on this team for him, despite his talent. That I disagree with. With Barker, you were giving up a bit of defensive skill in addition to the salary hit for the luxury of his skills. Both of those were significant costs. With Versteeg, you aren't giving up much - he truly can do it all. You're just gonna battle a bit of inconsistency, but that happens with a lot of young players, especially highly skilled ones like Versteeg.
It'd have been silly to give up on him this early - I'm glad the Hawks haven't yet and I hope they don't during the Great Salary Cull of 2010. Versteeg brings a pair of rare gifts when his head is on right - great playmaking and plus defense. For that reason he should always have a spot on this squad. Sure JQ has to work to find him a spot that fits and to keep his confidence up and focus right, but I think it's worth it for all the great things Steeger can do when he's on his game.
As for Buff, the return we got for Barker has me very excited to see what this similar asset can bring. Like Barker, Buff's game is a bit unpolished, but his natural talents and unique abilities make him a rare and valuable piece. Like Barker, Buff will probably prosper in a new, less pressure-filled setting where he can settle into a decent scoring line and do his thing. Unlike Barker, though, I don't see Buff ever figuring it out and becoming a star.
To me, Buff just doesn't have it in the head and heart. I've been waiting for three seasons for this kid to play like the superstar he could be all game long, all season long. I thought a shot at Team USA would have made him a beast in the first half. Instead, Buff continues to disappear for long stretches and actually seems to be quietly regressing in his impact. He's still doing enough to have value around the league, he's still a big dude who can be menacingly physical when it suits him, and he's still putting up some decent numbers (16 G, 12 A).
But on a team that's dominatingly positive, Buff is a -8. On a team with playmakers galore, Buff's on pace to get about the same amount of goals he had the past two years. There was no pre-Olympic surge and there haven't even been that many "Buff came to play" nights, periods, or even shifts.
I still have hope for Buff making a significant impact this season (more to come on that shortly), but I'm now firmly decided that he has to go this off-season.
-Sopel and Huet continue to wear the Indian Head.
In the case of Huet and to a lesser extent Sopel, the reason for their continued presence on the Hawks is the opposite of Buff's and Steeg's - the Hawks couldn't find anyone willing to take on their salary without having to give up too much in addition.
With Sopel, there wasn't a huge motivation to move him - the Hawks respect his grindy way and love how he throws his body in front of shots as if his paycheck has a double-digit minimum bruise requirement. But the fact is on a fast, puck possession team like the Hawks, Sopel is not a good fit.
Sopel could be a nice value piece on a trapping, lockdown physical squad looking to steal 2-1 games. With the Hawks, Sopel's inability to either skate or handle the puck are constantly exposed. I'm just waiting for that horrendous turnover or untimely undressing that leads to a goal in the wrong moment of the playoffs.
With a salary of $2M this year and next, the Hawks would have preferred to move him and find a more suitable defenseman, but that probably wasn't a very likely possibility. There might have been a very slight upgrades, but probably not worth the cost.
Hence Sopel will remain a Hawk for the rest of the season. Fortunately, he's been playing well enough - even while miscast on this team - that he's re-established his trade value and should be fairly easy to offload this Summer. At that point Sopel will only have one year left at what is becoming a reasonable price for what he brings, if he's going to the right type of squad. And the Hawks can reinvest his money on a better fit for their 5th or 6th d-man.
Of course, now that we're down so many defensemen, Sopel's presence is shockingly a positive. Sopel was the guy they paired with Keith last night and he did a fine job of it. After missing nearly all of last year, he's redeveloped his confidence and really taken to his support role on this team. I still would like to see Hendry get the 6th blueliner slot when Campbell comes back, but in the meantime, I'm finally appreciative of Sopel's presence.
As for Huet, the Hawks couldn't have been more motivated to move him, but unfortunately two major hurdles stood in the way. The first is that the Hawks needed to find another goalie to replace him. Not a single goalie moved at the deadline, so it's safe to say this was a clear challenge for the front office.
The second and most obvious hurdle was Huet's contract, such an albatross only a year and a half after it was signed. A year and a half in which Huet's GAA has been a 2.53 (19th) and a 2.40 (10th). As good of a job as the Hawks front office has done, clearly that signing was a major, major mistake when so soon after it, and following such respectable performances, it's an anchor around their necks.
The simple reality is that the price it would have cost to find a team willing to take on Huet in addition to finding a team willing to part with a top flight goalie was just way too high, especially given what history has shown us. Go back to the lockout and check out the Stanley Cup finalists - the list of goalies doesn't read exactly as you'd expect:
06 Finals - Ward beats Roloson. Ward wasn't even the #1 for the Canes most of the year, while Roloson was 15th in the league in both GAA and Sv% - solid, but not dominant.
07 Finals - Giguere beats Emery. Giguere actually missed the first four games of the first round, but his backup Bryzgalov staked the Ducks to a 3-0 lead before Giggy came back and lead the Ducks to the Cup, his second impressive playoff run. Emery had a damn good season, but since has melted down and then not played in the NHL for a year, before returning to post a ho-hum performance this season.
08 Finals - Osgood beats Fleury. The Wings have no true #1, splitting between Hasek and Osgood before finally giving the nod to Hasek to start the playoff. That went terribly, Osgood stepped in and saved the day, and lead the Wings to another Cup. Fleury, up until this run, had been relatively unproven, although he was coming off a good regular season.
09 Finals - Fleury beats Osgood. Fleury doesn't even make the Top 20 in either GAA or Save percentage and is a big part of the reason the Penguins fire their coach in the final month of the season. Yet he's able to bounce back and lead his team to the promised land, besting multi-cup winner Osgood in doing so.
So what am I taking from this? Sure it helps to have a guy like Giguere, who's experienced and playing well. Or a guy like Emery or Fleury in 08, coming off a strong regular season. But it's clearly not a necessity. The majority of those goaltenders were unproven, coming off mediocre years, and/or not even their team's clear #1. Sounds a lot like the Hawks options right now, eh?
The most encouraging example of this was Osgood last year - the guy was 40th (of 46 qualifiers) in GAA and 44th in save percentage! Look at those numbers again. Yet he got the Wings to Game 7 of the Cup, handling the Hawks along the way (something studs Kipprusoff and Luongo couldn't do). Gives you a little more faith that Huet might just find the good after all?
And Osgood is no crazy outlier - reaching back before the lock-out, Khabibulin came off a poor regular season (21st GAA, 26th save %) only to stand on his head while backstopping the Lightning to the Cup. I mean he didn't just help his team to the Cup, he was the primary reason they won it. All after a middling season.
I know it's no fun watching the Hawks goaltenders look so damn shaky out there. It's no fun watching how JQ has completely mishandled them, refusing to commit to Huet, destroying both his confidence and his rhythm well before the situation demanded it. Not once has JQ let either goalie work through the struggles that all goalies, hell all athletes, will go through. And it's definitely no fun to see how the Hawks D has imploded in front of them, maybe both a cause and an effect of the poor play in the crease.
But it's not so bad that I'm freakin out like too many uneducated fans and unimaginative commentators. What has been completely lost in all of this is that Huet has a long track record as a plus goaltender in the NHL. Check out his year-by-year numbers and you find a ton of Top 10 finishes in the goalie stats. Yes, Huet's got nothing of a playoff resume, but neither did a lot of the guys on my list of Cup Finalists above.
And if Huet really can't get it together in time (or JQ doesn't let him), I'm not too freaked out about going with Niemi. He's not the savior everyone first thought he was, but the kid does seem to be at least capable. Given a long stretch of consecutive games behind a Hawks team that actually was dialed in as it should be, I can see Niemi being solid enough.
So sure it would have been great for some magical trade partner to bail the Hawks out of the Huet contract while some other magical partner threw them a proven, hot netminder ready to hoist the cup. But that wasn't even close to realistic possibility.
As it stands, the Hawks goaltending absolutely needs to get better. But if the defense would get their heads out of their asses and JQ would think longterm and develop a strategy for establishing a #1 by the playoffs, instead of by the next game, I could see either Huet or Niemi following the pattern established by many previous goalies of unexpectedly backstopping their teams to the Finals.
Monday - dealing with the Campbell injury, juggling 14 forwards in 12 starting spots, and what I'm hoping to see down the stretch.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
About Last Night...
Over the last few days I wrote up a summary of my thoughts on what the Hawks have been going through since I last posted way back in early January.
However, that'll have to wait until tomorrow, as WAY too much happened in last night's game for me not to throw out a few thoughts. And because brevity is not a skill I possess, I'm gonna ramble on a bit about the game today, then post the lengthy Part I tomorrow, and then the equally lengthy Part II come Monday.
To last night's game:
1) That hit by Wisniewski was the worst I've ever seen live in hockey. It was malicious and dirty, and complete bush league. He did every single thing to break the rules - he came from 60 feet out, didn't play the puck, came in with his hands up, targeted the head, and left his feet.
And the results were as scary as anything I've ever seen - Seabrook was instantly knocked out cold on his feet. Watching the replays made me sick. Everyone involved was lucky he didn't fall weird and do real damage, because he had zero body control at that point. And who knows what damage was done just by the hit - Seabrook looked really bad. Concussions are scary ass things - I hope this wasn't a major one.
2) The only thing that made me sicker than the hit was the ref's response. TWO MINUTES FOR CHARGING?!? If the NHL doesn't both suspend Wisniewski for a huge chunk AND issue an apology for the ref's mishandling the call, I'm gonna be furious. Sure I had the benefit of all the slow motion replays, but these guys are supposed to be watching everything that's going on. You mean to tell me between the four of them not a single one saw even a few of the FIVE different things Wisniewski did to make that an obvious game misconduct?
But the fury I felt after this hit was only compounded by the refs' decision to swallow their whistles with 5 minutes to go and thereby directly cost the Hawks the game. Look, I understand it's a tough call to make - Sopel wasn't pushed super hard and it's a tight game late.
But when ref's start thinking instead of just doing, you get the exact situation that played out - the push to the back (which everyone in the entire arena and watching at home saw - we all were waiting for that puck to come down) goes uncalled while taking Sopel out of the play and giving the Ducks the puck alone in front of the net. A mad scramble by the Hawks defenders to compensate ensues, leading them to be out of position for the Ducks goal.
Look, it's simple - the guy might not have pushed hard and a bit of contact in that situation is part of the game, but the rules are the rules for the very reason we saw play out - cause if you don't call em, it could be a HUGE advantage to the offending team. And that's what happened - that clear penalty gave the Ducks the game, plain and simple.
Say what you want about baseball's rules, but the one place it does it right is with managers - it should be normal in every sport for a manager or coach to run onto the field, get into an explosive argument with the ref, and get tossed. Watching the Hawks lose because the refs blew the second painfully obvious call of the night would have brought me, as a coach, over the boards and onto the ice, mouth foaming, until I had gotten my money's worth. And then I would have started back to my bench... only to turn back around and charge the ref a second time! I would have made sure not to bump him, but definitely got a second dose of my money's worth.
One terrible call will get me going - two of them, one which failed to penalize an absurdly dangerous play and one which directly cost us the game - there is no way I wouldn't have put on one of those coaching meltdowns that gets replayed on sports highlight shows for decades.
3) What the F was with the Hawks lack of a response?!? I respect Keith for his effort, as girlish as it was, because he's not at all a fighter but still went after Wis. But when it became clear the ref's weren't gonna punish Wis, it became necessary for one of the wingers to go straight at him, the hockey game be damned.
I'm not meathead who's always calling for guys' heads or anything, but as I said, that was one of the dirtiest hits I've ever seen and it did some major damage to Seabrook. He might be concussed enough to miss huge amounts of time, at the absolute point we can't afford to lose a blueliner. Hell, his whole career could be in jeopardy - not saying it is, just saying that a bad concussion can definitely have that effect.
Someone on the Hawks absolutely, no question, has to go out and make Wis pay. If the first guy who picks a fight doesn't pound him into oblivion, then another guy should take a whack at it. Look, you're not risking anything in the game - those points don't mean jack, as the Hawks have their two seed locked up baring a meltdown. And if they meltdown, the seed is the least of our worries.
On top of that, the Hawks already have a bunch of extra skaters they don't need - with Seabrook out and Buff back on D, JQ can't roll four forward lines anyway. So Burish and Eager are expendable - first one and then the other should take on Wis. Even if it means getting the 2 minute instigator. Hell, even if they get a 5-minute major and Wis gets nothing - I DON'T CARE! Again, a loss doesn't matter now.
But allowing a guy to do that to your teammate without any response is extremely bothersome. I obviously don't know if JQ mandated, but you have to figure he did. No way all the players took it upon themselves to back down. Those dudes live for that shit. So what was JQ thinking? Dude, the wins don't freakin matter!!! Defending Seabrook is way more important. Teams remember that kind of stuff - it makes a difference in how they'll play you in the playoffs. JQ needed to tell his boys to establish for the whole league to see that you don't mess with the Hawks.
Instead the mustachioed idiot established that he really, really wants to get two extra points that will serve no purpose. You're an idiot, JQ. You've used this theory (that shortterm points are worth more than longterm success) to screw up your goalie situation (more on that tomorrow). And now you've used it to establish the Hawks as pussies in other teams' minds.
Finally, on some level I appreciate Boynton trying to go after Wis when the game ended, but that just drove in the above point further - that JQ had called off the dogs as long as the game was in play. Seriously, shave your mustache right now, because you don't deserve to wear one. Mustaches are for guys who believe in old time hockey. I don't know what you believe in, JQ, but what I saw last night leaves me to believe you don't have what it takes to lead this team to the promised land.
Not just cause you pussed out, but because you continue to miss the bigger picture of what you need to do to win it all. You seem to be coaching for one game at a time. But the sign of a great coach is one who's coaching with an eye on games, weeks, and months down the road. Everything the great coaches do is strategically thought out to result in one goal - winning the whole damn thing. Everything JQ seems to do is focused on winning the next game.
That's the kind of thinking that makes you good, but never great. And check JQ's record - that's the kind of coach he's been. 90+ win seasons, a round or two in the playoffs, then hit the golf course. Sure he's never had talent like he does now. And he's never operated under Bowman's system. So maybe this time will be different. But what I saw last night and what I've seen out of the way he's handled the goalies - I'm a bit fearful JQ might be our Doug Collins. If so, will the Hawks realize it in time? And will they be able to find their Phil Jackson?
Man I hope so. Because the one other thing I got out of last night's game is a reminder of what it used to be like to be a Hawks fan. We've been so spoiled lately after having been away from hockey for so long that we forget what it's like to have subpar players out there. Last night our defensive corp couldn't have been more subpar, and for the first time in forever, I remembered how frustrating it is to watch guys not be able to do what they wanted, when they wanted.
Look, the Hawks make mistakes and aren't always successful, but you always feel like the guys out there on the ice can do it, they just aren't getting it done at that moment. But last night I remembered the feeling of knowing that the guys we had out there just couldn't do it. The helpless feeling of wishing someone more talented was wearing your jersey on that shift.
The fact is that the Hawks have a pretty amazing thing going right now and I'm just now realizing how much more fun that is than the garbage we've been dealing with since the mid 90s. I don't want to blow this collection of dudes because the coach isn't right. I'm overstating this all right now - JQ did a great job with them last year and has them in the right spot again this year. But with so much at stake and such a small window to win the Cup (you just never know what the future holds), I'm a bit nervous about whether he's got the chops. It's one thing to make a bad team good. It's a whole nother challenge to make a good team great.
I just hope JQ's up to it.
However, that'll have to wait until tomorrow, as WAY too much happened in last night's game for me not to throw out a few thoughts. And because brevity is not a skill I possess, I'm gonna ramble on a bit about the game today, then post the lengthy Part I tomorrow, and then the equally lengthy Part II come Monday.
To last night's game:
1) That hit by Wisniewski was the worst I've ever seen live in hockey. It was malicious and dirty, and complete bush league. He did every single thing to break the rules - he came from 60 feet out, didn't play the puck, came in with his hands up, targeted the head, and left his feet.
And the results were as scary as anything I've ever seen - Seabrook was instantly knocked out cold on his feet. Watching the replays made me sick. Everyone involved was lucky he didn't fall weird and do real damage, because he had zero body control at that point. And who knows what damage was done just by the hit - Seabrook looked really bad. Concussions are scary ass things - I hope this wasn't a major one.
2) The only thing that made me sicker than the hit was the ref's response. TWO MINUTES FOR CHARGING?!? If the NHL doesn't both suspend Wisniewski for a huge chunk AND issue an apology for the ref's mishandling the call, I'm gonna be furious. Sure I had the benefit of all the slow motion replays, but these guys are supposed to be watching everything that's going on. You mean to tell me between the four of them not a single one saw even a few of the FIVE different things Wisniewski did to make that an obvious game misconduct?
But the fury I felt after this hit was only compounded by the refs' decision to swallow their whistles with 5 minutes to go and thereby directly cost the Hawks the game. Look, I understand it's a tough call to make - Sopel wasn't pushed super hard and it's a tight game late.
But when ref's start thinking instead of just doing, you get the exact situation that played out - the push to the back (which everyone in the entire arena and watching at home saw - we all were waiting for that puck to come down) goes uncalled while taking Sopel out of the play and giving the Ducks the puck alone in front of the net. A mad scramble by the Hawks defenders to compensate ensues, leading them to be out of position for the Ducks goal.
Look, it's simple - the guy might not have pushed hard and a bit of contact in that situation is part of the game, but the rules are the rules for the very reason we saw play out - cause if you don't call em, it could be a HUGE advantage to the offending team. And that's what happened - that clear penalty gave the Ducks the game, plain and simple.
Say what you want about baseball's rules, but the one place it does it right is with managers - it should be normal in every sport for a manager or coach to run onto the field, get into an explosive argument with the ref, and get tossed. Watching the Hawks lose because the refs blew the second painfully obvious call of the night would have brought me, as a coach, over the boards and onto the ice, mouth foaming, until I had gotten my money's worth. And then I would have started back to my bench... only to turn back around and charge the ref a second time! I would have made sure not to bump him, but definitely got a second dose of my money's worth.
One terrible call will get me going - two of them, one which failed to penalize an absurdly dangerous play and one which directly cost us the game - there is no way I wouldn't have put on one of those coaching meltdowns that gets replayed on sports highlight shows for decades.
3) What the F was with the Hawks lack of a response?!? I respect Keith for his effort, as girlish as it was, because he's not at all a fighter but still went after Wis. But when it became clear the ref's weren't gonna punish Wis, it became necessary for one of the wingers to go straight at him, the hockey game be damned.
I'm not meathead who's always calling for guys' heads or anything, but as I said, that was one of the dirtiest hits I've ever seen and it did some major damage to Seabrook. He might be concussed enough to miss huge amounts of time, at the absolute point we can't afford to lose a blueliner. Hell, his whole career could be in jeopardy - not saying it is, just saying that a bad concussion can definitely have that effect.
Someone on the Hawks absolutely, no question, has to go out and make Wis pay. If the first guy who picks a fight doesn't pound him into oblivion, then another guy should take a whack at it. Look, you're not risking anything in the game - those points don't mean jack, as the Hawks have their two seed locked up baring a meltdown. And if they meltdown, the seed is the least of our worries.
On top of that, the Hawks already have a bunch of extra skaters they don't need - with Seabrook out and Buff back on D, JQ can't roll four forward lines anyway. So Burish and Eager are expendable - first one and then the other should take on Wis. Even if it means getting the 2 minute instigator. Hell, even if they get a 5-minute major and Wis gets nothing - I DON'T CARE! Again, a loss doesn't matter now.
But allowing a guy to do that to your teammate without any response is extremely bothersome. I obviously don't know if JQ mandated, but you have to figure he did. No way all the players took it upon themselves to back down. Those dudes live for that shit. So what was JQ thinking? Dude, the wins don't freakin matter!!! Defending Seabrook is way more important. Teams remember that kind of stuff - it makes a difference in how they'll play you in the playoffs. JQ needed to tell his boys to establish for the whole league to see that you don't mess with the Hawks.
Instead the mustachioed idiot established that he really, really wants to get two extra points that will serve no purpose. You're an idiot, JQ. You've used this theory (that shortterm points are worth more than longterm success) to screw up your goalie situation (more on that tomorrow). And now you've used it to establish the Hawks as pussies in other teams' minds.
Finally, on some level I appreciate Boynton trying to go after Wis when the game ended, but that just drove in the above point further - that JQ had called off the dogs as long as the game was in play. Seriously, shave your mustache right now, because you don't deserve to wear one. Mustaches are for guys who believe in old time hockey. I don't know what you believe in, JQ, but what I saw last night leaves me to believe you don't have what it takes to lead this team to the promised land.
Not just cause you pussed out, but because you continue to miss the bigger picture of what you need to do to win it all. You seem to be coaching for one game at a time. But the sign of a great coach is one who's coaching with an eye on games, weeks, and months down the road. Everything the great coaches do is strategically thought out to result in one goal - winning the whole damn thing. Everything JQ seems to do is focused on winning the next game.
That's the kind of thinking that makes you good, but never great. And check JQ's record - that's the kind of coach he's been. 90+ win seasons, a round or two in the playoffs, then hit the golf course. Sure he's never had talent like he does now. And he's never operated under Bowman's system. So maybe this time will be different. But what I saw last night and what I've seen out of the way he's handled the goalies - I'm a bit fearful JQ might be our Doug Collins. If so, will the Hawks realize it in time? And will they be able to find their Phil Jackson?
Man I hope so. Because the one other thing I got out of last night's game is a reminder of what it used to be like to be a Hawks fan. We've been so spoiled lately after having been away from hockey for so long that we forget what it's like to have subpar players out there. Last night our defensive corp couldn't have been more subpar, and for the first time in forever, I remembered how frustrating it is to watch guys not be able to do what they wanted, when they wanted.
Look, the Hawks make mistakes and aren't always successful, but you always feel like the guys out there on the ice can do it, they just aren't getting it done at that moment. But last night I remembered the feeling of knowing that the guys we had out there just couldn't do it. The helpless feeling of wishing someone more talented was wearing your jersey on that shift.
The fact is that the Hawks have a pretty amazing thing going right now and I'm just now realizing how much more fun that is than the garbage we've been dealing with since the mid 90s. I don't want to blow this collection of dudes because the coach isn't right. I'm overstating this all right now - JQ did a great job with them last year and has them in the right spot again this year. But with so much at stake and such a small window to win the Cup (you just never know what the future holds), I'm a bit nervous about whether he's got the chops. It's one thing to make a bad team good. It's a whole nother challenge to make a good team great.
I just hope JQ's up to it.
Monday, March 1, 2010
More Olympic Thoughts
Yesterday I gave you my thoughts on Team USA's performance. Today, my random takes on some other Olympic issues:
-With the thoughts and and emotions of yesterday's post a fairly widespread thing right now, how can Commissioner Bettman and his cronies actually be so stupid to consider not having the pros in the Olympics in 2014?!?
First, as we just learned, you never know when you're gonna get an amazing tournament that grabs the nation's attention. Bettman tried to argue that because the Olympics will be in Russia, the games will be at odd hours, people won't watch and therefore won't care. Sure, on some level that's true - viewership will be down.
But that also evidences a very dumb command of how buzz actually works. It's not what people see, it's what people talk about. Think about how many people were talking about the US-Canada prelim match-up (i.e. their first game) - do you really believe all of those people were watching non-medal round hockey on CNBC on a Sunday afternoon?
What actually happened is that the game was amazing, so the diehard fans and media talked all about it, then the masses picked up on the buzz and wanted to be a part. It wasn't just the game itself - people wanted to be part of the energy of the team and the storyline. The games could be played on the moon at 3 AM, but if the US does something noteworthy enough to create buzz, that buzz will spread not much different than if the games were played in primetime in the middle of New York City.
And the thing hockey needs above else, is buzz. Given how dead the sports world always is during February, how the hell can a sport like hockey forfeit it's one chance to get actual national attention? Here's how dumb Bettman is - he used that as an argument AGAINST the Olympics. He claimed that with the Super Bowl over, Baseball not really going yet, and March Madness still off, it was hockey's time to shine. Thus, it was a bit of a hindrance to their ability to draw attention when they have to shut down the NHL season for the Olympics.
WHAT?!? Bettman you ignorant slut. What's going to get hockey more attention:
Option #1 - a couple of weeks of mid-season contests that are part of an 82-game schedule where 16 teams make a four-round playoffs, just the same as every other year
Option #2 - the greatest players competing for their home countries in a two-week event highlighted by essentially eight NHL-All Star teams locked into seven win-or-go-home battles that only occur once every four years
Seriously, Betty? This is even up for discussion?
Second, of all the times to pull out the NHLers, why the hell would you do it when the US team is coming into its own? Miller, fast becoming the top goaltender in the world, is only 29. The rest of the team can't rent cars in most states. The US Juniors just won nationals (in Canada over the Canadians - huge props, by the way... I'm sorry it took me so long to mention it here). Sure, plenty of highly hyped teams fall face-first (see Russia circa 2010) in the Olympics. But plenty don't (see Canada circa 2002, 2010).
You're telling me there'd be anything better for the NHL than having the US team dominate the nation's attention for two weeks in the sports dead zone of February? You don't think the first gold medal since 1980, won by our biggest NHL stars, would have a major impact on the sport's popularity for years to come?
Or that the hype in the lead-up to the tournament wouldn't draw all sorts of attention to the NHL? You don't think after this performance by this American team, that returning the same core of guys to Russia wouldn't be a major story for months ahead of the games? Not a major hockey story, not even a major sports story, but a major news story.
Obviously the players all love playing for their national teams - that was one of the most evident aspects of these games. It didn't matter that they were all knee-deep in the slog of that 100+ game NHL season. Every single team there was made up of guys who wouldn't have traded it for the world. Those two epic battles between the U.S. and Canada proved that.
Ovechkin is so committed he's already said he'll just leave his team in 2014 if NHL players aren't allowed to play - sentiments shared by many other Russian players, who haven't threatened that step, but certainly would be upset if the powers-that-be denied them this chance to play in their home country.
So this call is 100% on the owners to not be short-sighted and dumb as rocks, blowing the only opportunity they have to propel hockey into the national limelight for something positive. Open your eyes, you idiots - do the right thing for the sport, for its fans, and for your own damn pocketbooks.
-So clearly I'm none too happy with the Commissioner and the owners for even considering ending NHL participation in the games. But they are the only ones feeling my wrath these days - all of those anti-Olympic NHL fan whiners can also screw off.
Soccer, a sport with WAY more money, interest, love, death, etc riding on it, manages to play international games all the time. All year long there are qualifiers and friendlies and random tournaments. Every other year all the European countries play in either the Euro or the World Cup, both of which are like March Madness, a Game 7 of the World Series, and the Super Bowl all rolled into one... but going on for a month straight.
Hoops and baseball also have their pros playing internationally. Yes, they don't have to stop their seasons, but is an in-season injury that much worse than a pre-season or off-season one? These people also whine about a compressed schedule - wait, I thought you said you're a fan? So how is having more games more often a bad thing?
I love that the Hawks are playing every other night. Game nights are a highlight of my week - even if I can't watch, it's great to wake up the next day and read about the outcome. So having that more often is bad how? Especially because the "cost" of this is to have even more amazing hockey to follow for two weeks in the form of the Olympics? And not having a pointless, idiotic, worthless all-star break?
Arguing against the Olympics by hockey "fans" and pundits is all nonsense. No true fan and no intelligent pundit actually dislikes seeing games more often, getting treated to an incredible Olympics, and having their sport's profile raised. If you're making these arguments, you're just looking for a reason to bitch or something to fill up air time or column space. And you're a tool.
-So while I don't think much of all these anti-Olympic hockey fans, I actually think even less of anti-Olympic Hawks fans. I saw a bunch of writers and fans whining about how the Hawks had the most to lose in this tournament. How all they wanted was for their fragile little flowers to come home safe and sound.
Holy cow you morons couldn't be more wrong! The Hawks had the absolute most to gain in these games! Of the contenders (Hawks, Was, SJ, NJ, Pit, Van, and Det - come on, those guys always have to be considered), only the Caps and Canucks are anywhere near as inexperienced as the Hawks. And of those teams, only the Sharks and maybe the Canucks will face playoff pressure and expectations as high as the Hawks will.
So what more could you ask for than taking five of the six players most crucial to the Hawks hoisting the Cup (the 6th being whomever is in goal - more on that hopefully later this week) and putting them in the most pressure-filled, expectation-laden series of games they will ever experience? Especially when four of those five - all but Hossa - have never experienced anything even close to that?
You don't think that Kane, Toews, Keith, and Seabrook aren't far, FAR better off to handle the pressure of a Cup run now that they've not only experienced but thrived in a Gold medal run? Kane, Toews, and Keith played some of the biggest roles on their national teams, did so admirably, and now are coming back to the Hawks with the confidence and experience to do it all over again in April and May.
Throw in Seabrook getting the confidence of solidly hanging with the best of the best, Hossa getting a handful more big games to shake off his post-injury rust, and Kopecky getting a nice run away from the struggles of this season to rediscover his game, and the Hawks are coming out of the Olympics all Aces.
Oh, but these young 20-something year old kids are so tired. Sure, Keith and Seabrook looked bad (relative to expectations) for the last month or so before the Games. But how much of that was physical and how much was mental? Isn't it possible getting away from the drag of the NHL season and getting the immeasurable jolt of winning the Gold at home will return them to the Hawks rejuvenated mentally?
On top of that, there is plenty of time to rest those two and everyone else - the Hawks are all but locked into the #2 seed in the conference. Sure they'd like the #1 and they could really screw up and fall to #3, but odds are they'll have plenty of games down the stretch where Coach Q can dial back the minutes of his workhorses.
Whether the Olympics happened this year or not, the key to keeping Keith and Seabrook and everyone fresh is locking into a spot early enough to make April the time to get back your legs. So if you're worried about the youngest, deepest, and most high-energy team in the NHL somehow being tired for the playoffs, focus your concerns on the Hawks taking care of business in March and Coach Q having the foresight to alleviate the demands on his top players.
Well, that's about it for me on the Olympics - from here on out it's all Hawks. I've got a bunch of thoughts rumbling around upstairs, a bunch of half-written posts floating around somewhere. With the trade deadline tomorrow, I'm sure I'll weigh in on the look of the Hawks moving forward. From there, we'll debate how best to handle all the extra skaters (assuming they're all still around), what to do about the goalie spot (assuming the Hawks don't make a trade), and how much fun it'll be if the Red Wings don't make the playoffs (I'm not holding my breath).
-With the thoughts and and emotions of yesterday's post a fairly widespread thing right now, how can Commissioner Bettman and his cronies actually be so stupid to consider not having the pros in the Olympics in 2014?!?
First, as we just learned, you never know when you're gonna get an amazing tournament that grabs the nation's attention. Bettman tried to argue that because the Olympics will be in Russia, the games will be at odd hours, people won't watch and therefore won't care. Sure, on some level that's true - viewership will be down.
But that also evidences a very dumb command of how buzz actually works. It's not what people see, it's what people talk about. Think about how many people were talking about the US-Canada prelim match-up (i.e. their first game) - do you really believe all of those people were watching non-medal round hockey on CNBC on a Sunday afternoon?
What actually happened is that the game was amazing, so the diehard fans and media talked all about it, then the masses picked up on the buzz and wanted to be a part. It wasn't just the game itself - people wanted to be part of the energy of the team and the storyline. The games could be played on the moon at 3 AM, but if the US does something noteworthy enough to create buzz, that buzz will spread not much different than if the games were played in primetime in the middle of New York City.
And the thing hockey needs above else, is buzz. Given how dead the sports world always is during February, how the hell can a sport like hockey forfeit it's one chance to get actual national attention? Here's how dumb Bettman is - he used that as an argument AGAINST the Olympics. He claimed that with the Super Bowl over, Baseball not really going yet, and March Madness still off, it was hockey's time to shine. Thus, it was a bit of a hindrance to their ability to draw attention when they have to shut down the NHL season for the Olympics.
WHAT?!? Bettman you ignorant slut. What's going to get hockey more attention:
Option #1 - a couple of weeks of mid-season contests that are part of an 82-game schedule where 16 teams make a four-round playoffs, just the same as every other year
Option #2 - the greatest players competing for their home countries in a two-week event highlighted by essentially eight NHL-All Star teams locked into seven win-or-go-home battles that only occur once every four years
Seriously, Betty? This is even up for discussion?
Second, of all the times to pull out the NHLers, why the hell would you do it when the US team is coming into its own? Miller, fast becoming the top goaltender in the world, is only 29. The rest of the team can't rent cars in most states. The US Juniors just won nationals (in Canada over the Canadians - huge props, by the way... I'm sorry it took me so long to mention it here). Sure, plenty of highly hyped teams fall face-first (see Russia circa 2010) in the Olympics. But plenty don't (see Canada circa 2002, 2010).
You're telling me there'd be anything better for the NHL than having the US team dominate the nation's attention for two weeks in the sports dead zone of February? You don't think the first gold medal since 1980, won by our biggest NHL stars, would have a major impact on the sport's popularity for years to come?
Or that the hype in the lead-up to the tournament wouldn't draw all sorts of attention to the NHL? You don't think after this performance by this American team, that returning the same core of guys to Russia wouldn't be a major story for months ahead of the games? Not a major hockey story, not even a major sports story, but a major news story.
Obviously the players all love playing for their national teams - that was one of the most evident aspects of these games. It didn't matter that they were all knee-deep in the slog of that 100+ game NHL season. Every single team there was made up of guys who wouldn't have traded it for the world. Those two epic battles between the U.S. and Canada proved that.
Ovechkin is so committed he's already said he'll just leave his team in 2014 if NHL players aren't allowed to play - sentiments shared by many other Russian players, who haven't threatened that step, but certainly would be upset if the powers-that-be denied them this chance to play in their home country.
So this call is 100% on the owners to not be short-sighted and dumb as rocks, blowing the only opportunity they have to propel hockey into the national limelight for something positive. Open your eyes, you idiots - do the right thing for the sport, for its fans, and for your own damn pocketbooks.
-So clearly I'm none too happy with the Commissioner and the owners for even considering ending NHL participation in the games. But they are the only ones feeling my wrath these days - all of those anti-Olympic NHL fan whiners can also screw off.
Soccer, a sport with WAY more money, interest, love, death, etc riding on it, manages to play international games all the time. All year long there are qualifiers and friendlies and random tournaments. Every other year all the European countries play in either the Euro or the World Cup, both of which are like March Madness, a Game 7 of the World Series, and the Super Bowl all rolled into one... but going on for a month straight.
Hoops and baseball also have their pros playing internationally. Yes, they don't have to stop their seasons, but is an in-season injury that much worse than a pre-season or off-season one? These people also whine about a compressed schedule - wait, I thought you said you're a fan? So how is having more games more often a bad thing?
I love that the Hawks are playing every other night. Game nights are a highlight of my week - even if I can't watch, it's great to wake up the next day and read about the outcome. So having that more often is bad how? Especially because the "cost" of this is to have even more amazing hockey to follow for two weeks in the form of the Olympics? And not having a pointless, idiotic, worthless all-star break?
Arguing against the Olympics by hockey "fans" and pundits is all nonsense. No true fan and no intelligent pundit actually dislikes seeing games more often, getting treated to an incredible Olympics, and having their sport's profile raised. If you're making these arguments, you're just looking for a reason to bitch or something to fill up air time or column space. And you're a tool.
-So while I don't think much of all these anti-Olympic hockey fans, I actually think even less of anti-Olympic Hawks fans. I saw a bunch of writers and fans whining about how the Hawks had the most to lose in this tournament. How all they wanted was for their fragile little flowers to come home safe and sound.
Holy cow you morons couldn't be more wrong! The Hawks had the absolute most to gain in these games! Of the contenders (Hawks, Was, SJ, NJ, Pit, Van, and Det - come on, those guys always have to be considered), only the Caps and Canucks are anywhere near as inexperienced as the Hawks. And of those teams, only the Sharks and maybe the Canucks will face playoff pressure and expectations as high as the Hawks will.
So what more could you ask for than taking five of the six players most crucial to the Hawks hoisting the Cup (the 6th being whomever is in goal - more on that hopefully later this week) and putting them in the most pressure-filled, expectation-laden series of games they will ever experience? Especially when four of those five - all but Hossa - have never experienced anything even close to that?
You don't think that Kane, Toews, Keith, and Seabrook aren't far, FAR better off to handle the pressure of a Cup run now that they've not only experienced but thrived in a Gold medal run? Kane, Toews, and Keith played some of the biggest roles on their national teams, did so admirably, and now are coming back to the Hawks with the confidence and experience to do it all over again in April and May.
Throw in Seabrook getting the confidence of solidly hanging with the best of the best, Hossa getting a handful more big games to shake off his post-injury rust, and Kopecky getting a nice run away from the struggles of this season to rediscover his game, and the Hawks are coming out of the Olympics all Aces.
Oh, but these young 20-something year old kids are so tired. Sure, Keith and Seabrook looked bad (relative to expectations) for the last month or so before the Games. But how much of that was physical and how much was mental? Isn't it possible getting away from the drag of the NHL season and getting the immeasurable jolt of winning the Gold at home will return them to the Hawks rejuvenated mentally?
On top of that, there is plenty of time to rest those two and everyone else - the Hawks are all but locked into the #2 seed in the conference. Sure they'd like the #1 and they could really screw up and fall to #3, but odds are they'll have plenty of games down the stretch where Coach Q can dial back the minutes of his workhorses.
Whether the Olympics happened this year or not, the key to keeping Keith and Seabrook and everyone fresh is locking into a spot early enough to make April the time to get back your legs. So if you're worried about the youngest, deepest, and most high-energy team in the NHL somehow being tired for the playoffs, focus your concerns on the Hawks taking care of business in March and Coach Q having the foresight to alleviate the demands on his top players.
Well, that's about it for me on the Olympics - from here on out it's all Hawks. I've got a bunch of thoughts rumbling around upstairs, a bunch of half-written posts floating around somewhere. With the trade deadline tomorrow, I'm sure I'll weigh in on the look of the Hawks moving forward. From there, we'll debate how best to handle all the extra skaters (assuming they're all still around), what to do about the goalie spot (assuming the Hawks don't make a trade), and how much fun it'll be if the Red Wings don't make the playoffs (I'm not holding my breath).
U-S-A! U-S-A!
Tomorrow - my random thoughts on the Olympic tournament, but today - an ode to the boys in red, white, and blue:
I've never been this pumped about US Hockey before. The 1996 World Cup victory over Canada was sweet, but the event didn't have the big hype and analysis beforehand, so the main excitement came after the fact, in the stunning and awesome realization that the American hockey players could hang with any in the world.
The 2002 Silver Medal run was cool, but we ended with a home ice loss to the damn Canadians, so it left a bitter aftertaste. Also, it was clear this was the end of an era, as that incredible core of skaters wouldn't be making much of a mark on the international level again.
Because I was born in 1979, I wasn't lucky enough to experience the 1980 team, still the greatest sports story of all time. Side note - if you ever have a chance to actually watch a broadcast of that game, DO SO! It doesn't matter that you know how it'll end, it's still one of the most tense and exciting games you'll ever see. I watched a chopped version on ESPN Classic, missing random chunks of 5 or 7 minutes here or there (seriously ESPN Classic - is the programming schedule really that in-demand you can't afford to give it a full play?!?) and still found it to be one of the best sporting events I've ever seen. That's no exaggeration - an incomplete viewing of a game I knew the ultimate outcome of and still was up there with the most thrilling things I've ever seen. I can't fathom what it was like to watch at the time.
But within my hockey fan lifetime, no U.S. Hockey feeling compares what I'm going though right now. Yeah, we lost yesterday. And yeah, I'm pretty damn pissed and upset about how we lost (more on that later). But holy balls am I pumped about the brand of hockey I saw the Americans play the last two weeks. And holy balls am I proud of what those kids did.
Now being proud of a team is generally reserved for parents or coaches. It sounds pretty odd to think of yourself as being proud of one of your pro teams. But that's the beauty of international sports - it's the rare situation it's completely justified to be proud of the team you're a fan of.
This U.S. hockey team was the perfect example of why. These kids faced the most established, most talented, most complete hockey team in the world, only to out-work, out-gut, and out-execute them. They won when no one believed in them and then again when all eyes were on them. They won in blow-outs and nail-biters. And in one short week, they went from a team that was lucky to steal a win from a dominant Canadian team to having Canada be lucky to steal a game from them because of a brainless rule (again, I'll get to that).
And what was the major motivation for these kids on Team USA? Obviously it wasn't money or personal accolades - there are no contracts to be earned, no awards given out. It wasn't for the team or some special camaraderie - these guys first skated together exactly 14 days ago. It wasn't for pride or bragging rights - they faced little expectations and had already exceeded them, and you don't show that kind of amazing heart just to have something to talk smack about.
Nope, what drove these kids was that they were Americans, that they were damn proud of that, and that they were thus going to give every single ounce of what they had to make all of us, their fellow Americans at home living and dying with every rush up the ice, damn proud of the hockey we watched them play out there.
So hell yeah I'll tell you I'm proud of these guys - they've more than earned that from me. I'm proud of a team that found a way to beat a pesky Swiss squad to open the tournament on the right note. I'm proud of a team who used a blow-out against Norway to build up some confidence. I'm proud of a team that showed no fear against the Canadians, who responded to every Canadian goal with another of their own, and who didn't let being out-gunned and out-played keep them from believing they still could win.
I'm proud of how they handled the pressure of being the number one seed and talk of the tournament by again dispatching a scrappy Swiss team. I'm proud of how they came out guns blazing against a highly-accomplished Finnish squad in a do-or-die game and didn't let off the gas until the game was in-hand.
And most of all, I'm proud of how they played the Canadians last night. Unlike the first game, it wasn't obvious who the clear-cut superior team was. The Canadians had the better players, but the Americans played better. They won the free puck battles, they played stellar positional defense, and they were constantly working together as a unit.
But what made me most proud was that they got down but never gave up, not even a little. At about the midway point of the game, Canada was up 2-0, and while not skating circles around the U.S. by any means, were clearly the better team. But from that point on, the U.S. took it to the Canadians. Didn't matter that the Canadians were hanging back in a suffocating trap - the U.S. hustled and fought and kept creating chances. And despite having to sell out everything forward, the U.S. wasn't getting beat back the other way, even against an entire Canadian roster of guys capable of doing just that.
They got that first goal in the second period to keep the game tight, keep the pressure on the Canadians. As then as the seconds and minutes ticked off in the third, as the chances for that tying goal kept slipping away, they just kept battling. Dump it in, dig after it, pay the price on every rush. Work along the boards with physicality and intelligent positioning. Keep the sticks and legs going when forechecking in the Canadian zone to cause turnovers and increase chances. Move the puck, find open teammates, put shots on goal, crash the net, and don't ever give up on a play.
And then it all paid off. On that tying goal, pretty much every single thing the U.S. team had been busting their butt to do, everything that allowed them to hang as equals with the greatest in the world, all of that came into play. That dramatic tying goal in the waning seconds of the game - it only happened because of about 10 to 20 different small and big things that the U.S. skaters did on that shift. The same 10 to 20 different small and big things they had been fighting to do all game long, all tournament long.
I couldn't be prouder. They played Canada to a 2-2 tie in 60 minutes of incredible hockey. They didn't simply hang with them, catch some lucky breaks or get some incredible goaltending. They showed that out there on the ice, their team was as good as the Canadian team. Sure Canada had more pure talent. But the U.S. had more grit and hustle, and better utilized their advantages as a team.
Would winning in the 4x4 or a shoot-out have been more fun? Of course, but it wouldn't have made me prouder. The fact was that the U.S. game was built strictly for normal hockey. A 20-minute 4x4 period? No bastardization of the sport could have favored the Canadians more. It took away the grind, the physical battles against the boards. It took away a lot of the teamwork, the positioning, the hustle.
The worst part? The U.S. had all the momentum. If this game goes into a normal 5x5 overtime, the U.S. has the edge. Not only mentally, but in the game's execution. The Canadians had gotten completely away from their game, trying to hang on to their lead through a trap. Everyone knows how hard it is to then flip a switch and get back to an aggressive style of play. On top of that, all the pressure was on the Canadians, not only as home ice favorites to win gold in their national pasttime, but now also because of the 2-0 lead they had let slip away.
On the other side, the U.S. had all the confidence in the world. They knew their brand of hockey worked. They had their backs against the wall but now had fought back to where they could taste victory. They knew that Canada had thrown the full weight of their immense talents completely into shutting down the Americans and still could not do so.
So there was no pride lost in how the Americans lost. They had accomplished something no one could have predicted - entering that overtime, had it been a 5x5 set-up, they would have been even money, if not holding a slight edge, against the mighty Canadians.
So I'm a little bummed that these kids and us fans didn't get a fair chance at the dream ending. I'm bitter at whomever sits on the Olympic hockey rules committee and didn't think through the fact that a 4x4 overtime would be an unnecessarily poor way to conclude a great game. I get they can't play 5x5 forever - that's why you have the necessary evil of the shoot-out. But if you're gonna play another 20 minutes, why the hell not play it as the game was intended? As it had been fought to a dramatic stalemate after the previous 60 minutes? You're already committing to 20 minutes of extra time - why completely change the way the game is played in order to decide the victor?
But as frustrating as that is, it will pass. Instead I'll just be left with the memory of two great weeks of rooting for a bunch of my fellow Americans, mostly young kids, almost all having yet to make their mark on the game. The appreciation of a group of guys born and raised here, who gave every single ounce of themselves on the ice, and did it all to make people like me proud. And the resulting pride I felt in the way they used endless hustle, unceasing physicality, and incredible teamwork to prove themselves the on-ice equals of one of the greatest collections of hockey talent ever.
(check in tomorrow for more of my thoughts on the Olympic tourney)
I've never been this pumped about US Hockey before. The 1996 World Cup victory over Canada was sweet, but the event didn't have the big hype and analysis beforehand, so the main excitement came after the fact, in the stunning and awesome realization that the American hockey players could hang with any in the world.
The 2002 Silver Medal run was cool, but we ended with a home ice loss to the damn Canadians, so it left a bitter aftertaste. Also, it was clear this was the end of an era, as that incredible core of skaters wouldn't be making much of a mark on the international level again.
Because I was born in 1979, I wasn't lucky enough to experience the 1980 team, still the greatest sports story of all time. Side note - if you ever have a chance to actually watch a broadcast of that game, DO SO! It doesn't matter that you know how it'll end, it's still one of the most tense and exciting games you'll ever see. I watched a chopped version on ESPN Classic, missing random chunks of 5 or 7 minutes here or there (seriously ESPN Classic - is the programming schedule really that in-demand you can't afford to give it a full play?!?) and still found it to be one of the best sporting events I've ever seen. That's no exaggeration - an incomplete viewing of a game I knew the ultimate outcome of and still was up there with the most thrilling things I've ever seen. I can't fathom what it was like to watch at the time.
But within my hockey fan lifetime, no U.S. Hockey feeling compares what I'm going though right now. Yeah, we lost yesterday. And yeah, I'm pretty damn pissed and upset about how we lost (more on that later). But holy balls am I pumped about the brand of hockey I saw the Americans play the last two weeks. And holy balls am I proud of what those kids did.
Now being proud of a team is generally reserved for parents or coaches. It sounds pretty odd to think of yourself as being proud of one of your pro teams. But that's the beauty of international sports - it's the rare situation it's completely justified to be proud of the team you're a fan of.
This U.S. hockey team was the perfect example of why. These kids faced the most established, most talented, most complete hockey team in the world, only to out-work, out-gut, and out-execute them. They won when no one believed in them and then again when all eyes were on them. They won in blow-outs and nail-biters. And in one short week, they went from a team that was lucky to steal a win from a dominant Canadian team to having Canada be lucky to steal a game from them because of a brainless rule (again, I'll get to that).
And what was the major motivation for these kids on Team USA? Obviously it wasn't money or personal accolades - there are no contracts to be earned, no awards given out. It wasn't for the team or some special camaraderie - these guys first skated together exactly 14 days ago. It wasn't for pride or bragging rights - they faced little expectations and had already exceeded them, and you don't show that kind of amazing heart just to have something to talk smack about.
Nope, what drove these kids was that they were Americans, that they were damn proud of that, and that they were thus going to give every single ounce of what they had to make all of us, their fellow Americans at home living and dying with every rush up the ice, damn proud of the hockey we watched them play out there.
So hell yeah I'll tell you I'm proud of these guys - they've more than earned that from me. I'm proud of a team that found a way to beat a pesky Swiss squad to open the tournament on the right note. I'm proud of a team who used a blow-out against Norway to build up some confidence. I'm proud of a team that showed no fear against the Canadians, who responded to every Canadian goal with another of their own, and who didn't let being out-gunned and out-played keep them from believing they still could win.
I'm proud of how they handled the pressure of being the number one seed and talk of the tournament by again dispatching a scrappy Swiss team. I'm proud of how they came out guns blazing against a highly-accomplished Finnish squad in a do-or-die game and didn't let off the gas until the game was in-hand.
And most of all, I'm proud of how they played the Canadians last night. Unlike the first game, it wasn't obvious who the clear-cut superior team was. The Canadians had the better players, but the Americans played better. They won the free puck battles, they played stellar positional defense, and they were constantly working together as a unit.
But what made me most proud was that they got down but never gave up, not even a little. At about the midway point of the game, Canada was up 2-0, and while not skating circles around the U.S. by any means, were clearly the better team. But from that point on, the U.S. took it to the Canadians. Didn't matter that the Canadians were hanging back in a suffocating trap - the U.S. hustled and fought and kept creating chances. And despite having to sell out everything forward, the U.S. wasn't getting beat back the other way, even against an entire Canadian roster of guys capable of doing just that.
They got that first goal in the second period to keep the game tight, keep the pressure on the Canadians. As then as the seconds and minutes ticked off in the third, as the chances for that tying goal kept slipping away, they just kept battling. Dump it in, dig after it, pay the price on every rush. Work along the boards with physicality and intelligent positioning. Keep the sticks and legs going when forechecking in the Canadian zone to cause turnovers and increase chances. Move the puck, find open teammates, put shots on goal, crash the net, and don't ever give up on a play.
And then it all paid off. On that tying goal, pretty much every single thing the U.S. team had been busting their butt to do, everything that allowed them to hang as equals with the greatest in the world, all of that came into play. That dramatic tying goal in the waning seconds of the game - it only happened because of about 10 to 20 different small and big things that the U.S. skaters did on that shift. The same 10 to 20 different small and big things they had been fighting to do all game long, all tournament long.
I couldn't be prouder. They played Canada to a 2-2 tie in 60 minutes of incredible hockey. They didn't simply hang with them, catch some lucky breaks or get some incredible goaltending. They showed that out there on the ice, their team was as good as the Canadian team. Sure Canada had more pure talent. But the U.S. had more grit and hustle, and better utilized their advantages as a team.
Would winning in the 4x4 or a shoot-out have been more fun? Of course, but it wouldn't have made me prouder. The fact was that the U.S. game was built strictly for normal hockey. A 20-minute 4x4 period? No bastardization of the sport could have favored the Canadians more. It took away the grind, the physical battles against the boards. It took away a lot of the teamwork, the positioning, the hustle.
The worst part? The U.S. had all the momentum. If this game goes into a normal 5x5 overtime, the U.S. has the edge. Not only mentally, but in the game's execution. The Canadians had gotten completely away from their game, trying to hang on to their lead through a trap. Everyone knows how hard it is to then flip a switch and get back to an aggressive style of play. On top of that, all the pressure was on the Canadians, not only as home ice favorites to win gold in their national pasttime, but now also because of the 2-0 lead they had let slip away.
On the other side, the U.S. had all the confidence in the world. They knew their brand of hockey worked. They had their backs against the wall but now had fought back to where they could taste victory. They knew that Canada had thrown the full weight of their immense talents completely into shutting down the Americans and still could not do so.
So there was no pride lost in how the Americans lost. They had accomplished something no one could have predicted - entering that overtime, had it been a 5x5 set-up, they would have been even money, if not holding a slight edge, against the mighty Canadians.
So I'm a little bummed that these kids and us fans didn't get a fair chance at the dream ending. I'm bitter at whomever sits on the Olympic hockey rules committee and didn't think through the fact that a 4x4 overtime would be an unnecessarily poor way to conclude a great game. I get they can't play 5x5 forever - that's why you have the necessary evil of the shoot-out. But if you're gonna play another 20 minutes, why the hell not play it as the game was intended? As it had been fought to a dramatic stalemate after the previous 60 minutes? You're already committing to 20 minutes of extra time - why completely change the way the game is played in order to decide the victor?
But as frustrating as that is, it will pass. Instead I'll just be left with the memory of two great weeks of rooting for a bunch of my fellow Americans, mostly young kids, almost all having yet to make their mark on the game. The appreciation of a group of guys born and raised here, who gave every single ounce of themselves on the ice, and did it all to make people like me proud. And the resulting pride I felt in the way they used endless hustle, unceasing physicality, and incredible teamwork to prove themselves the on-ice equals of one of the greatest collections of hockey talent ever.
(check in tomorrow for more of my thoughts on the Olympic tourney)
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