Guess It Wasn't Phil's Fault

I'm making a bigger deal out of Phil Kurashev's healthy scratch for effect, because it's fun and it's something of a calling cardn of mine. But it is funny that when Luke Richardson brings the hammer down for the first time this season on a player who at least has a chance to be a part of something real and then his team proceeds to lay the biggest egg of the season. Probably not what he was expecting

We expect the Hawks to lose, and expect them to be bad, but it's still disheartening to see how much slower the Hawks were than the Canucks on Tuesday night. For where the Hawks are, it's not easy to sign players who are quick and can play quickly to short-term contracts for cheap money that maintains "flexibility." Being slow is why the likes of T.J. Brodie and Pat Maroon and Ryan Donato were available for the money that the Hawks wanted to throw around. That's all understandable.

But it's not like Nolan Allen or Wyatt Kaiser looked up to the pace required to run with a team like Vancouver (yes, it still hurts to say that). Same goes for Tyler Bertuzzi, who was a signing meant to at least be a bridge to things that matter. This list of players who look like they can't get there could go on.

Do the Hawks know what 2024-2025 speed really looks like? Can they play like that one day? Do they mean to? These are the questions we'll be watching for the rest of this season that's already making googly eyes at the toilet.

Bullets!

• The Connor Bedard shot-meter was where it needed to be, with six on net. But there are...well, not concerns, that's too strong. Just something to watch, I suppose. Bedard still doesn't have a one-timer in his arsenal, be it on the power play or when he finds space at evens. We know that he has a quick release, perhaps among the quickest in the league, and yet we don't see it all that often. Bedard is skilled at getting his shots through, and that's hardly nothing, but it feels like A. if his chances don't come off a rush where he's moving and the goalie is moving he can't catch them off-guard and B. he's taking long enough at the other chances to see goalies close the window, no matter how hard his wrister might be. If Bedard is going to be the 50-60 goal guy we all think he will be, those goals have to come in a variety of ways. Right now, they don't.
• Still, the sight of him trying to serve Maroon a chance on a silver platter in the 1st period and Maroon finding a way to miss from 18 inches was...sobering.
• Speaking of Bertuzzi, while he was able to finish during a 5-on-3, does he do anything else? Has he this season? His line got totally fustigated at even-strength (at least with Anathasiou centering it), so the problem wasn't Kurashev. He hasn't been good along the boards, hasn't finished much around the net, which are the things he was brought here to do.
• On the plus side, Reichel got three minutes between Hall and Bertuzzi went from an xG% of 21 percent to 88. Worth trying again. Or assuming Kurashev returns to the lineup on Saturday, maybe one of them on the wing of the second line.
• I thought it was pretty apt that as soon as the Hawks broadcast wanted to wax poetic about Tyler Myers passing 1,000 games for reasons we can't identify he immediately turned the puck over at his circle allowing Hall to score. Myers has always been a fraud and he's suckered a third team into thinking he's anything worth building a team around. When the Canucks eat it in the playoffs again, it'll be small odds that Myers will be at the heart of it.
  While we're on the subject of the broadcast, to hear Caley Chelios tell it, everything is rosy and the Hawks are a juggernaut and everyone's good and it's just the worst luck that they got punted into the rafters for most of the night. I know she's state media and can't bus-toss the team on their official broadcast, but this team didn't manage 60 points last year and is now 2-4-1, which is a 68-point pace. Caley doesn't have to tell us the truth to the hilt, but she also doesn't need to piss in our ear.
• One fears the injuries have caught up to Connor Murphy. He has looked slow and choppy with the puck and hasn't been much of a force around his net, though he was hardly alone in that department on Tuesday. Kaiser and Allen and Jones all had issues not tying up a man during goalmouth scrambled and instead opted to fish for a puck they couldn't find. But as far as Murphy goes, back surgeries for a d-man in his 30s is feeling like a harbinger of doom so far.
• And now, this bullshit:

Buddy, you're the goddamn captain now. The room is full, or at least more full, of vets that were supposedly brought in to raise the level of professionalism in that room, if not the actual skill. They gave you the keys. If the team comes out not ready to play, if they're making mistakes of the mental kind instead of the physical, IT'S ON YOU NOW. You're not some interloper brought into lead the kids by torchlight with your "wisdom." You're entrenched. You've been declared the standard-bearer here. This act is wearing even thinner, somehow.

Just some random stuff, so won't give it a full section title.

-I'm in love with this touch from El Bilal Touré to give Stuttgart a win in Torino over Juventus. Yes, I'm only putting this in here for The Beverly Brewmaster:

That little chip takes him through and around four Juve players at the top of the box and leaves him with a clean look from 10 yards. It's the little things that lead to big things, people. One little chip, and half the opposition just falls away...

-I apologize for the short length of today's and yesterday's newsletter. Got my flu and COVID shots at the same time on Monday and well, it was more of a right hook to the jaw than I was expecting. This is about the max I've been able to spit out the past couple days before falling over. We'll get back to normal service tomorrow. Thanks for your understanding.