Hairyducked Idiot

Jesus guys it's 5-5. The 2016 World Champions had separate stretches of 4-8, 5-5, 5-15 and 4-5.

Thanks to Edmonton beating Vancouver in a shootout, Blackhawks finish in the 7th draft position, pending the draft lottery. They have a 6.5% chance of getting No. 1 overall and a 20.4% chance of top 3.

Do we kinda suck or something? Whatever, I'm gonna watch the hockey playoffs and check back in May.

13 inning scoreless streak inside the same game. Baseball is dumb.

We are going to get mid-game no-hit by Jarlin Garcia for nine innings.

As someone whose free time is during the day and who lives on the west coast now, yesterday's 9:40 a.m. start time was perfect.

Apparently he plays in the highest level (elite) at Johny's Ice House. High-level rec league isn't exactly the NHL or even the minor pros, but it's not nothing. It's usually full of guys who either played in college or low-level pros. Irrelevant story nobody cares about: There's a pick-up game near my house on Fridays that I used to go to, but it suddenly became popular with the high-level guys. They were all nice about it, but after a few weeks I was the last bad player still showing up. My fat nerd self who took some learn to play classes and has two goals in the adult beginner league is lined up against a guy who was a top-100 pick for the Oilers. It was hilarious.

Emergency goalies are always amazing stories. I assume he's been playing high-level beer league since college. I'm always surprised they don't just make some healthy scratch plug who is already on the roster put on emergency gear.

E

Lefty homers are just inherently more aesthetic

I missed it, and that's what I deserve for waiting too long to start the game.

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Dylan Sikura's college season has ended and he'll debut with the Blackhawks probably this week. He's definitely a guy.

No comeuppance!

I understand and respect why they wouldn't do a full rebuild, but I think there's a good chance they need it. They might have a dead cat bounce big season in them, something like 2014-15 Vancouver. But I don't see a quick path to getting back to elite status. While Kane and Toews are "only" 30 (and 30 isn't 26 in terms of peak athletic production), Keith is at least as important as they are, is 35, and has always struggled with how many miles he's put on his legs. And they're also taking a bigger percentage of the cap than they were even during the last cup run, with less ways to circumvent the cap like they did with the Hossa deal. No matter what else you do, you're trying to recapture the 2008-2015 level of play with stars who are no longer in their full peak and with less cap space to build around them. It's a pretty big uphill climb. One way around it might be to get a little David Stern big-market draft lottery special next month. They're already down to the 7th overall spot, which is probably where they'll stay but the way they've been tanking lately has been impressive enough to give them a 10% chance at top-5. And even now they've got a 20% chance of getting their lottery ball pulled in the top-3. I don't really have a strong opinion on firing Quenneville either way. I'm generally against firing high-quality coaches in an attempt to shake things up when they aren't the problem, because it feels like you get stuck with a downgrade more often than not, but if they decide to do it I won't be that upset.

Getting housed right now by the Vancouver "haven't had a regulation win in last 12 games" Canucks. Some clutch tanking right there.

This. Derwood is the Bobby Bonilla swinging at Henry Rowengartner of vaginal location identification.

Changing the DOG penalty is a good idea. Getting rid of the salary cap would be interesting. Does the cap really create parity? Not really. Poorly run franchises can have whatever advantages they want, they still aren't winning the cup because they suck at recognizing and developing talent. These same teams don't spend to the cap anyway. Also, in a league where nearly half the teams make the playoffs there will always be some measure of parity. Hockey's not a "playoffs are coin flips" sport. It's not quite the NBA in those terms, but it's a lot closer to that than it is to baseball.

Who?

I know we've already inflated the points system, but I really don't want to completely lose touch with what point totals have generally meant, i.e. 100 points is a good season. Most of these ideas are flat-out awful (and the author probably knows it, he's just hot-taking). The only ones I would consider are: Non-conference matchups limited to 1 Get rid of the trapezoid Hand passes everywhere The one about kicking goals in is especially stupid. Someone will lose a goddamned hand in the crease.

No, he would've been a free agent this offseason and not next. Weird. I saw it somewhere that his service time for 2018 season is 6.070. Must've read it wrong or something. That's his service time heading into the season, i.e. right now. That would have been enough to qualify for free agency this offseason.

Calculating how many marginal championships you get from adding Jake Peavy. I think it was almost 2.

They're pretty bad, though. I think we got so caught up in the "Whatever, they always plug holes" vibe to notice how bad they'd gotten on paper. From last year's team, they dropped Hossa and Panarin (combined for almost 60 goals), Hjarlmarsson (their true second-best defenseman for awhile now), Oduya/TVR/Campbell/Roszvial (the entire back half of their D, more or less), Kruger and Panik (I loved having Kruger on the PK) and ended up losing Crawford to injury. That's two of your best 4 forwards, a top defenseman, most of your defensive depth and a chunk of solid forwards. That's a pretty thorough gutting.

Mineaswell follow the reverse standings as this season peters out: http://www.sportsclubstats.com/NHL/Western/Central/Chicago.html If you go down to the bottom of that page, it does lottery position odds. Blackhawks have a 96% chance at finishing in a top-10 slot and 8% of top-5. And that was before today's clutch loss to Buffalo.

Also the answer is Detroit or Montreal