Hawks Corner: Fire This Asshole
Without knowing what the Hawks' goals actually are, Jeff Blashill isn't helping them reach them.
I was pretty convinced that had the Hawks Mr. Bill'd their way to another loss against the Kings on Tuesday, an absolutely nothing team on the second of a back-to-back on the road, Jeff Blashill would not be making the Dad's Trip with them today. 3-9 would have been pretty much a season lost, though 4-8 isn't all that far away from it either, combined with insipid hockey should have been more than enough for the axe to fall. That could have just been in my own head, but either way, Blashill earned a reprieve and will at least get to join all the other fathers and mentors for a lovely dinner in the North End on Friday night. Maybe the Hawks are just hoping he'll get lost there, which is easy to do! All the streets are small and turn every which way!
There are things we can't know about the inner workings of the Hawks organization, assuming there are inner workings at all instead of the Simpsons vision of what the offices of Mad Magazine looked like. One, we don't know if Kyle Davidson is judging Blashill on points-total or development or a combination of both. As we'll see, Blashill is failing on all those levels, but we'll run through that in a second. What's clear is that Blashill thinks he's being judged on points, but again, we'll get to that.
We also can't know if Davidson is panicked that firing a second coach means he'll have to get a series of cardboard boxes for himself as well. Thus Blashill will be getting more rope than normal so that Davidson doesn't hang himself with it.
Also, obviously, we don't get a look at the Hawks internal numbers and metrics which always seem to suggest that things are better than they look, just trust them. Can't ever quite figure that one out.
Still, there's more than enough evidence that keeping Blashill around is doing damage to whatever it is the Hawks are trying to accomplish.
1) The actual hockey is awful. The Hawks can't create anything, they never score, they're a hard watch, and in return for all of that, they're still wretched defensively. BAD DOOR.
It's not like the Hawks have made a choice to sacrifice offense to be solid defensively and grind out some points. They can't do either. If Davidson believes in the offensive talent he has, and he doesn't really have any choice otherwise, he at least should want to see chances and goals. This hockey is way more funeral dirge than Luke Richardson's ever was, and Richardson was fired as just about this point in his tenure.
2) Development. Where is it? Here was a stinging paragraph from Scott Powers's first 12-game assessment:
These are the opposing centers he’s been on the ice the most with this season: Mark Scheifele, Sam Bennett, Sebastian Aho, Sidney Crosby, Quinton Byfield and Robert Thomas. That says a lot.
It does, but not what Scott thinks it says. Frondell was drafted as a scoring winger, and has ended up a checking center in his first full NHL season. It's Kirby Dach all over again. Trying Frondell at center had its merits, especially with Bedard out. But that should have been as a pure scoring center. In fact, why are the Hawks matching up at all? Who cares? It's not like they have the lineup for it. Given that Frondell's xG-share is 31.3(!) he's clearly not taking to it.
If Davidson has a vision of how the roster is supposed to look, and that's not really clear, it can't have been turning Frondell into Sean Couturier.
Elsewhere, other than Artyom Levshunov, no one looks to be moving forward, though I suppose Frank Nazar's metrics suggest otherwise. And even Levshunov will go back to being used as Bowen Byram's caddie whenever Byram is healthy again (for six minutes). Which can work, as there are plenty of pairings around the league with two mobile, puck-happy guys. Toews-Makar, Faber-Hughes, etc. But still, Levshunov would be better off having total freedom to do his Spaceman Spiff thing, which he won't get trying to support Byram as he looks for his next injury.
3) Points chasing. This is combined with Davidson, but it still hints at a lack of cohesive plan. Spencer Knight is second in the league in starts, behind Jesper Wallstedt, who has to play all the time because Gustavsson has hip surgery. Sure, Arvid Fever has been awful in two appearances, but it's not like the Hawks are hurting for goalie prospects to get a look at. Why can't Commesso come up and get every third start? Don't they have to find out what they have? But Blashill is going to keep throwing Knight out there to try and scrape some OT losses together to burnish the record, until he breaks.
On top of that, the shit-in-the-cereal hockey is meant to pile up points that don't mean anything. It doesn't get anyone anywhere, and may be hurting them. It's enough.
4) Baffling decisions. It's not just the Frondell-as-checker. With Byram out (get used to that), there was a hole in the #1 PP QB role. Both Sam Rinzel and Levshunov have been mooted as future power play quarterbacks (yet another reason trading for Byram made no sense), and were used there last season. Isn't this a chance to give them a low-pressure cameo/audition for the role? Knowing that Byram would return to it soon would take some of the heat out of it for them, and they could just play.
Instead, we get Teuvo Teravainen there, whom Blashill started the season as a healthy scratch remember, who has never QB'd a power play. He didn't here, he didn't in Carolina, and he didn't in his return here. It's not something he's ever done. It doesn't help the Hawks be better. It doesn't help develop. It does nothing. The Hawks can't afford nothing.
Add that all up, and Blashill isn't helping the Hawks be a better team, nor is he devloping anyone to be a better team in the future. What else do you need?