It Has Started For Real
Only now does the Hawks rebuild feel like it's started.
Sector 1901 - It Has Started For Real
I am obviously not telling you anything you don't know when I say that the Hawks have been a frustrating watch. Not just because they've been bad for a long time now, though that's a large part of it, but because whatever they were promising would come was only a theory. It wasn't even really a theory that was being tested. Which I guess makes it a hypothesis?
The point is that we fans couldn't even see it to judge it. Whether it will all work or whether it won't, we couldn't even begin to do that work because everything wasn't here. That doesn't mean the Hawks should have, as Theo Epstein used to put it, give fans a cookie simply for the sake of it. That was how Epstein would describe simply calling up underdeveloped prospects simply so the fans could see them.
What was frustrating about the Hawks is that it seemed, and still seems, unnecessary that some of these kids weren't around longer. We weren't asking for a cookie, we were asking for a process to start that was ready to start and was being delayed for some mythical clock.
The story of the weekend is that the process now has started. The nine games that are left aren't going to give us any definitive answers one way or another. But they at least give us something to study, something to tune in for. The defense of Vlasic-Levshunov, Murphy-Korchinski, and Rinzel-Kaiser is the exact six that should be lining up come Opening Night next October, barring a trade to improve another area of the team. The hope is that those six are starting together for a while longer after that, though hockey rarely works like that. But with Spencer Knight in goal, and the defense looking like this, it could feel that some parts of the team are snapping into place and are just needing time. That's a different feeling than the Hawks have had in a long while.
It would be silly to make any sweeping judgements after one game. What I had noticed about Rinzel in the last couple of games at Minnesota that I watched him is that he wasn't shy any longer about using his size in the corners and down low. He was bigger than most college players, which he won't be in the NHL, but that willingness to engage and overpower will see him at least draw even in puck-battles until he gets the right amount of time in a NHL weight room. He also obviously has a sense of where to be in the offensive zone. D-men don't usually get 4 SOG, even less so in their first NHL game, but Rinzel was happy to jump into the holes that were there. If only Connor Bedard lacked the bashfulness in that sense.
Going to do my best to reserve judgement on Oliver Moore until at least the middle of next season. My hunch is that he's just fast, though not without hockey sense, and just that alone could make him a pretty decent third-liner and a PK weapon, even if he never exhibits any sort of special puck-skills.
They came after Korch's recall on Friday, and even though I noticed that two of the Hawks beat writers (I won't mention who) wanted to harp on his error that led to the first Knights goal, I noticed that neither commented on his 70-foot breakout pass on the backhand while under pressure that sprang the Hawks into Donato's hat trick goal. But I noticed: https://www.nhl.com/video/vgk-chi-donato-scores-goal-against-adin-hill-6370723238112
There was also this from Levshunov yesterday, though it didn't lead to anything, in the second period.
Between two forecheckers, under pressure, right on the tape to Donato, clean exit. These are the plays we get to watch for the last nine games and completely ignore the results. These are the kinds of plays that these kids can make, that make them dynamic, and they have to be allowed to try. Even if they fuck up from time to time.
That said, what we can see in these last nine games are limited by the idiot behind the bench. Even with the most mobile defensive unit the Hawks might ever ice, the Hawks were all too happy to sag off the blue line and let Utah enter as easily as they pleased. What's the point of having all these mobile kids if they're not going to be allowed to try and step up, cut things off, and use their speed to win races to the puck behind the net from a higher position? The point of this mobility is that it would be really hard to be beaten to the outside, and yet that's how it feels the Hawks have been instructed to play, terrified of being beaten to the outside.
The big culprit is this moronic 2-1-2 forecheck Anders Sorensen walked in boasting about. There's a world where it can work, if the two forwards just go hellbent for leather to try and create a ruckus in the opponents zone. But right now, the Hawks are playing too many slow, veteran forwards to make that work. Telling Bertuzzi's lazy ass or Foligno's aged ass to go hair on fire isn't going to do anyone any good. So that first two get bypassed easily when they're just trying to read and react, and once they're passed the forward behind them has too much ice to cover to try and force a puck-carrier anywhere.
A team can still be aggressive in a 1-2-2, depending on how they deploy it. It's what most teams use. But mostly it's meant to funnel the opponent in one direction or the other and to the to outside, where the d-men can step up because the puck-carrier has so few options. Thinks of it as an arrow-head wedging the ice in two. Instead, the Hawks do this:
'This is not the way forward.
-I did want to pick at something in Korch's game. His metrics against Vegas were great, not so much against Utah, but this might be why the Hawks get a little jumpy about icing a team with six mobile blue-liners and at least four puck-movers, depending on what you categorize Vlasic:
Korch has good position on Kerfoot here when the puck is at the left point, as Soderblom is looking at it. When it's moved to the other point, he's got to keep Kerfoot right there to keep the lane open for Soderblom and remove the threat of a tip. The last thing anyone wants is Kerfoot to be able to provide a flash screen on Soderblom, even without tipping the shot. But...
This is just experience and strength. He'll get it soon enough. But you can see why teams opt for a couple of road-graters on their blue line.
-The other talking point from the weekend, or the other major one, is Donato. A hat trick on Friday and another goal on Sunday, which brings him to the cusp of his first 30-goal season. It's obvious now that Donato has little to no interest in signing the $4M per year deal the Hawks have on the table. Which anyone could have told them he wouldn't. So what now?
Donato isn't going to put up these numbers again, unless you think his 17 percent shooting-percentage is somehow sustainable for a career 11% shooter. And no, he isn't generating more chances or shots than he has previously in his career. More are just going in because sometimes hockey be like that. He also shouldn't get the power play time he's getting here on any team that takes itself seriously.
His chance-rate is about on par this season with Tyler Motte and Erik Haula. That sounds about right, doesn't it? Again, so what now?
Are the Hawks going to pay him over $5M a year for four or five years? Some team might get glossy-eyed at the 30 goals and do so. But look at the Hawks top-six going forward, or at least what we hope it'll be. Nazar and Bedard are locks. The Hawks will likely draft another come June. Any real coach is going to put Teravainen up there. The Hawks are making noise that they will be signing or trading for a big time forward this summer, as they absolutely must. That's five of the six spots, and really the Hawks should be getting two wingers. What if Nick Lardis plays his way into that last spot?
Where does Donato fit then? Some would say you could overpay for him as a third-liner because of the amount of cheap kids in the top six, but Donato isn't a third-line player. He really isn't that good defensively. He doesn't kill penalties. So again, what now?
Basically, Kyle From Chicago missed on selling high on this guy, and reaping the rewards of making him a pretty good signing that other teams missed. Donato's ceiling is this, being a big scorer on a dog-ass team. He could have fooled someone into thinking he could be secondary scoring on a playoff team. Maybe he could have been, but that's not the Hawks problem.
In the long run, not getting a 2nd or 1st round pick for Donato isn't going to cripple what the Hawks are going to become in the next few years. It's just poor asset management, which doesn't make one confident in Kyle From Chicago augmenting the kids with the proper moves. Sitting around and praying that an overwhelming majority of draft picks blossom isn't a plan. It's a hope.
We'll do a short bit on The Fire, as a few have requested it. The Lakeshore 11 put on probably their worst performance on Saturday night, drawing with the East's worst team in Montreal. Maybe Montreal had some new-coach bounce after firing theirs in the middle of the week, but this is still a suck-ass team that the Fire couldn't overcome. In fact, they were mostly outplayed by the not-Impact.
There are some factors at play, though. The Fire don't have a lot of depth, so Brian Gutierrez and Kellyn Acosta being out robs them of a lot of ball progression and creativity. In fact, without Gutierrez, the Fire played a 4-3-3 instead of a 4-2-3-1, because they don't really have another #10. That might help explain the 0.81 xG they put up, a season-low.
They're also playing some kids. Leonardo Barroso at right-back is 19. Sam Williams is 20. Sergio Oregel is 19 as well. The combo of having to go to a couple backups and a couple kids is going to keep a team like the Fire from racking up good performances consecutively. It happens.
