squally1313

you can look back in the thread and see for yourself. the boston game i didn't post because i wasnt home (although i did post after the game saying how good of a win it was) I don't know, I just get the feeling that if the Bulls won by 20, and the Hawks got beat 4-0, you would have ignored this thread and posted a bunch of complaints in that one. Like people said, these games are largely worthless, and without Noah we aren't going to learn much. On the flip side, the Hawks shut out a quality conference rival for their third straight win. So basically....do you just watch the games you can complain about?

Duke in trouble late.

For the PK, the main thing I've seen is just a lack of shot blocking. Seems like the only guy I consistently see do it is Hammer. Most of the goals given up on the PK have been shots from the defensemen that get on Corey, and then there's a scramble that eventually gets stuffed in. Either step up and block the shot, or stay back and clear the rebounds. Keith has been finally starting to pick it up. Not last year version of him, but even 80% of that is a bonafide first pairing defenseman. He just needs to slow down, and stop shooting everything into the other team's shinpads and he'll be fine. I think you can put a lot of Seabrook's +/- is on him, since everything I've seen from Seabs has been pretty good. Bolland....agreed. That's why I'm hoping we stick with these lines, and just have him focus on negating the top line of the other team. When they get a couple points like tonight, all the better. Agreed again on Boynton/Cullimore. Cullimore was more than we expected, but god Boynton was awful. We'll see what happens with Leddy after this game, but I've liked what I've seen. Another good win tonight...Crawford sneaking up the goalie leaderboards in save percentage/GAA. We'll need it until the defense gets figured out.

Let's see how much dexter posts the next time we win.

Just to make it easier for everyone. I know it's easy to say now, but seeing what I've seen from him in the last six months, he would have been incredibly hard to root for if he had come to Chicago.

It's times like this when I wish we had a FanGraphs for hockey because I've been wondering about stuff like that. In terms of goal differential, the part that always got me was empty netters. Obviously, they are going to increase the goals scored, but they only come in close (ie Not Dominating) performances. Whereas if there's a game like tonight, you don't get one, but you still have a great goal differential. I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking it. From what I know though (which 99% comes from Second City Hockey), I think whatever advanced metrics there are favor shot totals as opposed to goal totals in terms of determining true skill. I guess it's kinda like BABIP and strike out rates, to make a baseball comparison. Put shots on net, and keep shots away from your goalie....over a large amount of data, shooting percentage tends to be fairly equal across the board. FWIW, the Hawk's are averaging 32.0 shots/game and giving up 28.6 shots/game, which is a differential of +3.3, which is good for 6th in the league. Then again, New Jersey is +2.5, and they are historically bad, so who knows.

Talk about a change of opinion.

God this is the Rose I wish we had for 82 games. 16 points, 9 free throw attempts with 2 minutes left in the first half.

had to make a dramatic return Seriously though, why even be a sports fan? It's not just the Bulls either. No one sees you in the Blackhawks thread when they go on a little run, and then as soon as they blow a game you show up and talk about how we're the worst team ever or whatever. Is this fun for you?

I can't stand this argument. By this definition, there are only a handful of impact players ever worth acquiring and the odds of it happening are slim, as only 1-3 such players are actually available any given off-season. By only considering such players, a team might never doing anything. If you can upgrade your wins by 1-2 with an acquisition that doesn't cost too much in prospects over the life of the contract acquired, then you do it. Incremental growth can be a formula for success without having one of the rare under 30 MVP candidates. The Cubs won 75 games last season. Incremental growth? Yes incremental growth. If the Cubs right now are a true 75 win team (which, I believe they're better, but whatever) there's not a single player in baseball that would give them the improvement they needed. Pujols is the best player in baseball, and even he, at 8 WAR, is only a 5-6 win improvement at first base over DLee, and that's before even considering the king's ransom we would have to potentially give up for him or for every other elite player in baseball. You make the small improvements, you let your young players grow and develop and learn what they are truly going to be, and then you make the big splash.

Definitely the one player you didn't want to lose. That being said though, the Hawks without Toews but with Kane and Hossa is better than the Hawks with Toews but without the other two. And we played well enough without them, I think we should still be fine. The last game was just something that's going to happen every now and then. Obviously we can't afford it happening very much at all anymore, but I don't think you can do much but just get past it and move on. But Sharp at top line center with Kane and Brouwer, have Bolland center the Slovaks, and let the other six keep playing as good as their playing (something like Stalberg/Dowell/Bickell is a pretty damn good third line, and Skille/Johnson/Scott is just something we'll have to live with for a couple weeks).

Possible major Ohio State story coming out that could lead to multiple suspensions, with names like Pryor and Herron being thrown around. Makes the Big 10's outlook look even worse, but then again, I hate Ohio State, so I'm happy. http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/40789474/ns/sports-college_football/

Agreed. The difference in the defensive zone is really amazing. During that bad stretch it seemed like at least once a game we had an awful turnover in our own zone by a defensemen, and you could usually count on the puck being loose in front of Crawford/Turco for way too long before the other team would jam it home. Now it seems like every shot either gets swallowed up by Corey, or cleared to the corner/out of the zone almost immediately. Doing this all without 3 forwards from the normal top 2 lines is even more impressive.

You really think he's entirely untradeable? His contract isn't that outrageous, and up until this year he's played pretty much like a second line forward. It's a blessing for the Hawks that Sharp learned the center position so well and so quickly, but it kinda made Bolland expendable. I think there's got to be teams out there that wouldn't mind bringing him on. I think teams would be willing to take him on if they gave up nothing, but he's potentially too valuable to the Blackhawks to justify giving away just for cap relief. The contract isn't obscene, but it is large and somewhat burdensome at 3.3+ for the next 3.5 seasons. I agree that he's extremely valuable to the Hawks in case of an injury, but I really think his injury problems last year changed his future with the organization. He came into last year as the clear cut number 2 center, but when he missed as much time as he did, Sharp started playing in that role, and I think really became a much better center than anyone anticipated. Sharp moved back up to the first line when Bolland came back, but Q seems intent on playing Kane/Toews together this year, which pushes Sharp back down the second line. I just think it comes down to the fact that we now have a player in Sharp who can play the number 2 center position very well, and provide more offensive threat than Bolland (clearly). Paying Bolland 3.3+ a year to be the number 2 center is probably a good deal....paying him to be the number 3 center isn't. But I think on a lot of teams Bolland would be the second best center, and probably the best PK center as well (on teams that don't have an all around player like Toews), and that contract becomes very reasonable then, especially for a player that young. But as we've talked about, the Hawks simply have too much money locked up elsewhere to be paying that much for a number 3 center. Ultimately, injuries do happen, and I think that's enough incentive to keep Bolland around, especially as he's played better lately. But for the sake of discussion, I think it's an interesting avenue to discuss.

Looking briefly through Rockford's stats, I'm not seeing a whole lot of immediate help. It seems like the best statistical players are all the equivalent of AAAA players (Jeff Taffe leads the team in points for forwards, and he's 28 years old). Most of the guys we got in the trades are still a couple years away (Morin, Vishnevskiy), and we've seen how much the Blackhawks value controlling their contracts. And obviously we'll have to wait a few years to see the impact of all the draft picks we received. The only guy down in Rockford that I can really see having potential is Brian Connelly, a 24 year old defender who leads the entire team in points and has one of the better plus/minuses of the team at -3 (ugh). But outside of trading Seabrook, I really don't see any of our defensemen going anywhere.

You really think he's entirely untradeable? His contract isn't that outrageous, and up until this year he's played pretty much like a second line forward. It's a blessing for the Hawks that Sharp learned the center position so well and so quickly, but it kinda made Bolland expendable. I think there's got to be teams out there that wouldn't mind bringing him on. Let's remember, he's only 24 years old. He was the 32nd overall pick when he was drafted, meaning he was considered borderline first round talent. His numbers in the minors were pretty outrageous (easily more than a point a game until his last year, where he had 49 points in 65 games). And in the pros coming into this year (since I'm looking at his wikipedia page), he's a .5 point per game player over his career, during his developmental years, while fighting injuries most of the time. And then there's his 28 points in 39 playoff games, and his ability to play the top center on a PK line. There isn't a team in hockey who wouldn't want to put that production on their second line for $3.5 a year?

Just realized I had forgotten about Bickell and his laser shot when trying to think of the lines. Obviously, any sort of trade involving Bolland would leave us quite thin and susceptible to injury, but it would be amazing to maybe pick up someone to take Boynton's spot and pick up a couple million in cap space, for this year and for the future. Stalberg-Toews-Kane Brouwer-Sharp-Hossa Bickell-Dowell-Skille Kopecky-Johnson-Pisani

Yeah I think if there's one player we should consider trading it's Bolland. I'm not saying he couldn't be a valuable player, but I think we saw his peak last year, and with the players that we have, he's not a necessity to our team, though he's being paid like one. I know this Ryan Johnson was mostly signed for the PK, but he's more than capable of centering the fourth line. And Jake Dowell has been pretty damn amazing in the last month or so. Not that he has any potential, but if he can play a good third string center between Skille and Brouwer, and then you put Sharp between the Slovaks, that makes Bolland pretty expendable, especially for the contract he has. It would require our centers to stay healthy, but if Johnson can take Bolland's spot on one PK line, with Toews/Hossa manning the other one, I think you have to look at shopping Bolland. You may not get much for him, but at the very least it gives you some flexibility with the cap, and let's you address a need that may arise come the deadline.

Unless they make a major leap up in the standings they absolutely should keep building for the future by the time the trading deadline arrives. Two wins are much less meaningful than 40% of a disappointing season. They are only 2 points ahead of 2 teams with 4 games in hand each. The playoffs remain very much in doubt. Yes but based on the fact that we won the Stanley Cup last year with a majority of the "key" players returning, it's more likely we play much better the rest of the year than how we have. Last year from January 9th to March 30th, the Hawks posted a 15-12-4 record, and a goal differential of -7. And yet somehow they put it together and started their playoff run to the Stanley Cup 2 weeks after that stretch ended. This year the Hawks are 18-14-3 and have a goal differential of +8, which is 5th best in the conference (albeit in 3-4 more games). No doubt we've played [expletive], but its a long season. Do I think the Hawks are going to go 37-10-4 the rest of the year, which is what the Hawks did around that mediocre stretch last year? Probably not, but I think they will play better at some point this year and will position themselves to be somewhere in the 4-7 range when the season is over. As we know the playoffs are a semi-crapshoot, so just getting in and being considered dangerous is fine by me. As it stands, the only team that I'd be less than certain we could beat is Detroit. As I've made clear, if they straighten things out and play great between now and the deadline, keep it status quo. But there is no reason why trading some of the key pieces can't be on the table if they continue on this uninspiring path. You can't keep expanding the untradable core. With Toews, Kane, Hossa, Campbell, Keith, Hjarmalsson and Bolland locked up longterm and unlikely to be going anywhere, names like Seabrook and Sharp can and should be up for debate. To address the two bolded parts... 1. Yeah, 2 games is a pretty small sample size to pick out of the 35 games played so far. How about the last 11 games? Or, over 30% of the games on the season, and I'd say even more significant than that because they are the most recent games played. 7-3-1 in that stretch, with one of those games being lost largely because of a BS penalty call (the double minor in the second Colorado game). With at least half of those being played without 2 of our top 3 forwards, as well as Bolland and Stalberg each missing a couple. So look at the first 24 games of this year, or look at all the games from last year and the last 11 of this year. I repeat, we are not playing badly. 2. This whole trading thing you really haven't made clear. Do we trade people now, or do we wait till the deadline? We trade away Sharp, we're left with Toews, an injury prone Hossa, an always one hit away from being injured Kane, and a bunch of pretty much unproved forwards, outside of maybe Bolland and Brouwer. Try and put lines together without Sharp and accounting for an injured Hossa without crying. Trading Seabrook away gets rid of our only physical defenseman. Yeah we'd get players back, that could probably help a lot down the line, but if we're trying to shed salary, we're not going to get a lot of immediate help. We're up to 9th in points per game in our conference, and 5th in goal differential. Dallas is going to fall off eventually, and no matter how we've played this year I'd like to think we're better than Nashville. Unfortunately we don't have the luxury of playing in the easier conference, or even an easy division, but we're going to find a way into the top 8, even if Toews has to drag us there. When we get there, I want Sharp and Seabs there.

Two pretty convincing wins against two of the top teams in our conference without 3 of our top 6 centers. But you know, season's still over and everything. Let's start rebuilding.

Have we heard any updates on Angel Guzman? He was pretty nasty in 09, and if he can come back healthy, our bullpen could get pretty crowded in a hurry. That would give us Marmol, Marshall, Wood, Grabow, and Guzman as 5 (hopefully) reliable bullpen arms. I don't think even the Cubs management is dumb enough to use Cash or one of our other pitching prospects in a mop up role, especially when we already have Silva for that.

This is Morin's 9th game tonight, and with Kane trying to be back for Friday, I'd say this could realistically be the last time we see Morin for the rest of the year. Enjoy him....really like watching him play.

But the salary cap implications and future health of the franchise means you do. And maybe that is the most ridiculous thing I've heard. The salary cap is real and matters. You can't keep an 8 man core all making multi millions longterm. The team is playing like crap anyway so it is a perfectly good excuse to improve your chances going forward instead of tryng to make magic happen next summer. Trading Sharp and Seabrook has to be on the table. If it is not then the team is doing itself a disservice. I think maybe you quoted the wrong thing the second time given your response. Or you just disregarded it and went back to the salary cap discussion. Either way, a couple things. 1. Again, how are we playing like crap? We're missing our second and third best forwards, the two best creators on the team. And we've still played really well in the last 8 or 9 games. I completely agree that we played like crap earlier in the year (the Edmonton games, the Devil game, etc) but I think our play and our record shows that we've picked it up since then. 2. I'm hesitant to continue talking about the salary cap issues because I really don't know all that much about it. I read SCH pretty much daily, and I remember in the offseason them saying Sharp wasn't really necessary, and then more recently saying that given what other defensemen have gotten, locking down Seabrook for just a moderate raise shouldn't be too difficult, and shouldn't cripple our cap situation. I think my whole point to the argument is that if you believe this team has a reasonable chance to compete for the Cup, as I do, you don't trade Sharp and Seabrook for draft picks and guys making the minimum. If you think we suck this year, as it looks like you do, then sure, go for it. But I disagree.

You are making a very large mistake by pretending I am only taking into account last night or even just this season's games. Trading Seabrook has to have been on the table for a long time. You can keep the core, but the core can't be that big for that long if you want to have a full team. And Sharp has been the best trade piece on the team since before they started selling, giving his production, reputation and cost certainty. The fact that they played so many games last year isn't going to change as the season goes on. They aren't going to get a break that other people don't experience to get caught up on rest. They've been mediocre, at best, all year long for a veriety of reasons. One of them is Seabrook and Keith have both been disappointing, but Seabrook is the only one of the two who is a realistic trade bait. Sharp has been the best trade piece on team since before they started selling because he is the best player out of all the options to get traded. Just because they are tradeable doesn't mean that you have to trade them. I've read articles from people who know a hell of a lot more about this than I do, and they seem to think we should be fine looking up Seabrook. Despite what we've seen from Morin and Stalberg, I still don't think, at the time, we got fair value in our offseason trades. And I think that was because teams knew we were desperate. If we do the same thing now, I think the same thing happens, and I don't think we get as lucky as we got with Stalberg, turning a third string guy on Edmonton to a first string guy on our team. And my point with the games played wasn't really about the rest. I probably shouldn't even have thrown in the point about having the shortest offseason. My point was that I think a lot of them were kinda gassed by the playoffs, and they struggled against teams that frankly they shouldn't have struggled against, given their regular season performance. And they saw a lot of teams make it into the playoffs that maybe didn't belong to be there, and even do well (Montreal, hell, even the Fliers). Maybe they subconsciously came to the conclusion that as good as they were last year, they can go 80% during the regular season (a la the Red Wings last year), and save their energy for the important time of the year. Yeah, they might have miscalculated on how good they believe they are, but I think they realized you don't have to have a regular season like they did last year to get to the Cup.

Maybe it is, but by the deadline you have to make the decision on at least Seabrook. If you resign him you are more or less committing yourself to coming back next year with the same roster. And soon enough, the cheap young talent filling spots at the back of the roster are going to get their own raises. Guys like Pisani, Skille, Stalberg and Brouwer are either UFA or RFA, as well as Crawford. If you keep Seabrook and Sharp you have to more or less start over in the process of restocking the rest of the roster. If you trade Seabrook and Sharp you get payroll relief immediately and over the next two years, plus you should get a massive infusion of talent to help fill those roles. I would much rather strengthen this team's chances in 2011/2012 and beyond than try and hold on too long to what is left from 2009/2010. As good as he was in the early going, Sharp has 1 goal in December when the team has needed the secondary scoring with the other losses. And for what it is worth, despite leading the team in points he is somehow a -8, the 3rd worst on the team. Campbell has been the most steady defensive player on the team. Seabrook has been a disappointment and the team has to be questioning the idea of signing him longterm, unless they can get him cheaply. It is December now. You can wait until the deadline, but so far this team hasn't looked anything like a playoff team, let alone a contender. Hockey teams need a kick in the pants from time to time and I think while a trade of those two may hurt them in the short-term, it is the best decision long-term. And it may be the only realistic thing they can do to wake them up. If they sneak into the playoffs with this roster and even win a series, it's a disappointment and they won't be any better off next year. If they make the move they could conceivably still sneak into the playoffs this year, and they will be better off going forward. Again, there is nothing wrong with the way we've played in the last 7 or 8 games. You can overreact to Seabrook's game last night all you want, and forget when he carried Keith the first month or so of the year, when he was the only real defenseman we had. You can look at Sharp's -8 over, again, 32 games, or his 1 goal in the last 5 games if you really want to use that. Throw the last two seasons out the window. Or maybe just consider the fact that this team played 104 games last year, without even including the Olympic games, and had the shortest time off of any team in hockey. One year ago today the Fliers were 15-15-1. The Hawks were 20-8-3. They ended up in the same spot. The hockey playoffs are pretty much as much of a crapshoot as baseball playoffs, maybe even more so. If you honestly don't think we can make the playoffs, then sure, blow the team up. But I really don't think you can say that about a team with the talent that we have.