Hawks Gameday: Get A Bag Of Flaming Flamers and Tom Ricketts's Missive

We've got the end of the roadtrip to set up, and then some thoughts on Tom Ricketts's treatise.

Sector 1901 - Hawks Gameday: Get A Bag Of Flaming Flamers

Flames Lineup

Huberdeau - Pospisil - Mantha

Honzek - Kadri - Kuzmenko

Zary - Backlund - Coleman

Lomberg - Kirkland - Coronato

Weegar - Miromanov

Bahl - Andersson

Barrie - Pachal

Wolf

What You Need To Know About The Flames: They're the early season candidates for "Best Motherfuck," as we labeled them a certain rebuild team. And then they went and spoiled it all by doing something stupid like winning their first three games. Ok, three games doesn't really change the trajectory of this team, but it's certainly been more fun than Flames fans were expecting. 16 goals in three games is certainly more fireworks than anyone would have predicted.

On the reality side, they're probably not going to shoot 13 percent for the whole season. And they're probably not going to get a .941 save-percentage at even-strength for the whole season either, both of which they've managed in their opening troika of games. But hey, they domed the Canucks and Oilers on the road, and that's objectively funny.

It's still, overwhelmingly likely, gonna be a thin season for the Flames. Though it wouldn't shock too many if Jonathan Huberdeau piled up the points on a team going nowhere, because that's mostly been his specialty throughout his career. Hubes is the only top-line talent on the squad, and is being centered by Martin Pospisil. Behind him are two two-way centers who at least used to be among the game's best but are now getting up there in age in Nazem Kadri and Mikael Backlund (for contractual reasons I still have to state that Backlund is the best player in the world or a very hairy man from the internet I know will knife me).

Up front, this season is probably about finding out what the Flames have in a couple of first-rounders in Connor Zary and Samuel Honzek. Zary has some gaudy numbers in the WHL and served a two-year apprenticeship in the AHL. Honzek is fresh out of the WHL by way of Slovakia. Zary had sort of a middling rookie season last term with 34 points in 63 games without standing out in any are beneath the surface-numbers. But he'll get more top-six chances this year.

This Flames outfit is a little more mismatched in terms of arc between their forwards and defense, as their defense would have been kind of nifty if it could support a better forward group. Kevin Bahl was more than effective as a middle-pairing player for New Jersey before being part of the summer trade for Jacob Markstrom. MacKenzie Weegar is a plus puck-mover. Rasmus Andersson has probably always promised more than he's delivered, but is still more than solid. Tyson Barrie and Brayden Pachal have been third-pairing bum-slayers so far this season, carrying possession-metrics in the 60 percent range. Which has always been Barrie's destiny.

We thought this season would be the one where the Flames finally turned things over in the crease to forever-prospect Dustin Wolf. But not yet. Dan Vladar has taken two of the three starts, though Wolf in his lone (get it?) start made 37 saves against the Flyers. For now it sounds like they'll split starts until Wolf claims the majority, but still expect Wolf to get the start tonight.

As some of you may know, I have a couple Twitter friends who are big Flames fans. I asked them to give us a quote about what we all should look for tonight: "Despite Sam's best efforts, Dustin Wolf is not a Hawk."

In conclusion, Flames fans are assholes.

Player To Watch - Nazem Kadri

Somehow, this is Kadri's 15th season in the league, if you didn't already feel old this morning. If there's a player we wish Frank Nazar would turn into, it's Kadri, though that's a huge ask. Kadri walked into the league a stone bitch to play against, famously driving Sidney Crosby nuts even when the Leafs sucked ass, and developing his offensive game as the years went by. Nazar probably doesn't have the defensive chops that Kadri did back then, but hope springs eternal.

While Nathan MacKinnon took the headlines, Kadri was the most important player on the Avs Cup-winning team, being a unicorn in that he could be asked to take the toughest defensive assignments and still collecting 87 points. The Avs have been looking for a#2 center ever since after Kadri moved on to Calgary.

Kadri is still producing, with 76 points last year, and he's starting to follow the Patrice Bergeron path. That is, a once-great defensive center who gets used simply as a #1 scoring center as he gets older but his reputation still carries a lot of weight. Kadri is starting over 60 percent of his shifts in the offensive zone since arriving in Calgary. Backlund is around to do the heavy lifting in that area.

Kadri is only in the third-year of a seven-year deal, but with a rising cap his $7M hit might not be too oppressive for a team to take on that needs one more piece to win. Right now, Kadri is around to babysit Honzek, and perhaps at 34 he's aged past being a trade piece for someone. We know he'll be unappreciated forever as the Toronto media could never focus on what he was instead of what he wasn't, and even his habits of taking the dumbest penalties and dirty hits has subsided. But the labels Leafs media put on a player are tough to shake, even if Kadri now has the ring that none of the Leafs have.

Between G-Man And Nisei - Tom Would Like A Word

I guess the one game I attended at Wrigley meant a lot to the Cubs, because I was lucky enough to receive Tom Ricketts's sort-of apology via email. Maybe it goes back to my partial season-ticket holder days, I don't know.It's not that I expect much from these, but it's not as if they don't curdle the blood a little anyway. If you hadn't seen it...

There is no way to sugarcoat it – this is not where we planned to finish the season. Like our fans, we had high expectations for our team this year and early victories delivered hope for postseason baseball. But inconsistent play and injuries upended that promise, leading us into a hole too deep to recover from despite another second half surge. Bottom line, we did not play a complete season of competitive baseball. As a result, we have again missed the most exciting and exhilarating month of the season – October.

They won 84 games, Tom. Isn't that exactly what you were planning? And when you fill the lineup and rotation with mid-level players, inconsistent play is what you get. That's why they're mid-level players. As far as injuries, Cody Bellinger getting hurt shouldn't be much of a shock. Justin Steele missing time after a huge jump in his innings-load in 2023 shouldn't be a shock. Good front offices plan for that sort of thing.

The work is underway to close the gap to make the Cubs a perennial playoff team. Our baseball operations staff is redoubling its efforts to build a team that consistently plays in the postseason and delivers the promise of sustained success to Cubs fans.

I'm harping on this, and I'll need to stop soon for all our sakes, but a perennial playoff team isn't what anyone is asking for. And "sustained success" defined as that isn't either.

Cubs fans want championships. And if no team can actually produce that, Cubs fans want the Cubs to act like the big dog on the block that they are in the NL Central. They want 95 wins. When Theo talked about as many spins of the wheel as possible, it was about a postseason structure that pretty much required 92 wins or more. Remember the Cubs won 95 games in 2018 and that wasn't enough. But with expanded playoffs, it's such a low bar to clear. Not that the Cubs have managed it. But merely getting above it isn't going to please too many.

The Dodgers are in the playoffs every year, and win near or over 100 games, and yet their fans still agitate. Same goes for the Yankees. Astros. Phillies. Isn't that the class the Cubs are supposed to be in?

Baseball has become like the NBA or NHL. No one does cartwheels or hangs from the streetlights over consistently nabbing a #5 seed. And yet that's explicitly what Ricketts says the Cubs are striving for.

Jed, Carter, and our team of coaches, analysts, scouts and strategists have created one of the top player development groups in the game today – with eight prospects on MLB Pipeline's Top 100 list – the most of any team in Major League Baseball. After this summer's draft, the Cubs boast a top-flight player development system in most independent rankings, including #2 in USA TODAY's latest evaluation.

No one cares about this until you produce more than one everyday regular and an actual star, anywhere. Otherwise, you're just the Hawks. And they have a genuine star! To boot, Tommy, Jed, Carter, and your crack team of coaches are going to have to open any spot for your beloved pipeline.

Also, Tom isn't a fan of the oxford comma, but I added it in anyway because I am and also I like to zig where he zags.

And USA Today is still a thing?

Under the leadership of manager Craig Counsell, we continued to see players develop on the major league level. Rookie pitcher Shota Imanaga, who signed as a free agent last offseason, had one of the best seasons as a rookie pitcher in Cubs history, leading the team with 15 wins, a 2.91 ERA, 174 strikeouts and only 28 walks. He steered the way on a memorable September night at Wrigley Field where his seven hitless innings kicked off a combined no-hitter that was closed out by Nate Pearson and Porter Hodge. Rookie Michael Busch secured a starting role at first base and slugged 21 homers with a .775 OPS. Fellow rookie Pete Crow-Armstrong brought excitement to the basepaths with six triples and a 93-percent stolen base rate. PCA also kept runs off the board with his electrifying defense. Additionally, veteran Ian Happ had a career year with personal bests in home runs (25) and RBIs (86) and continues to be a clubhouse leader.

Will any Cubs fan remember any of this in a week?

A .775 OPS and a 93 percent steal-rate. They'll slot right next to Kris Bryant's Game 6 home run or Ben Zobrist's RBI double or Miggy's grand slam. Maybe they'll frame something in the hallway of fame for it!

A .775 OPS. That's what we're celebrating here. It's never going to get better.

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