squally1313

Looks like according to this we still should have wished we got Redick instead of Brewer. That said, I am not going to scoff at having the 17th best bench player in terms of WP82. I included JR Smith there because he's another trade target. I wish we got Redick instead of Bogans. Same but considering Brewer is making nearly $5 mil and Bogans $1.6, I'm guessing a Bogans was always an option. What I wish is that we signed Eddie House instead of Bogans. In terms of skill sets and what they provide to the team, shouldn't we be wishing we got Redick instead of Korver?

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2011/news/story?id=6124272 I believe that's what they call "panic" from the Cardinal's camp. Also, I hate Tony La Russa.

For a little bit there, both games (this and Bos/Mia) were the exact same score with pretty much the exact amount of time played (4:40 left in this game, 1:15 left in the third in the NBA game).

God I hate Garnett. Literally half a second after he gives a shoulder to the head to Mike Miller he flops back about 15 feet on a Wade push. What a bitch.

OJ Mayo suspended 10 games for steroid use. Get him. Now.

Easy, complete win. Dex?

http://www.secondcityhockey.com/2011/1/13/1933768/the-balcony-is-open Real good article about (among other things), the pros and cons of Bolland possibly being shipped, which was something I mentioned a couple pages ago. Apparently there were a bunch of scouts at the game last night, and Bolland was the name that kept getting thrown around. If that's the case, they picked a good game to go to, as it was probably his best of the year. Originally, I was for trading him, not because he isn't a valuable player, but because he's getting paid too much to be a third line center. This article goes the other way though...focusing mainly on his skillset which is typically very important in the playoffs, and the lack of available players out there currently that would suit our needs. Personally, I'd leave the offense alone, and if you're going to trade him, look for an established defensive D-man so that between him and Hammer, we wouldn't have to worry about the third pairing nearly as much as we do now. Being able to roll out all three pairings without worry would keep us all from closing our eyes during Boynton/Cullimore/Leddy/Hendry time, and it would relieve the pressure on 72, who I think are being way overworked anyways.

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.