Pravda Is In Full Effect, The NWSL Keeps Calling Me

I promised yesterday that after going over how other players drafted in Frank Nazar's position had been developed that today we would do the same for Kevin Korchinski. And sometimes the universe, very rarely, decides to help you out and give you a boost. That was Mark Lazerus's post from The Athletic yesterday. Specifically why the Hawks are going to, pointlessly, send Korch down at the end of training camp.

Before we get really into the weeds of this, I just want to pull my favorite quote out of the whole thing right at the top:

“A lot of credit goes to the personnel down there. (We have) all the confidence in Anders Sorensen and his staff and Mark Eaton and our development staff,” Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson said. “We have a group of people there that are focused on these players basically 24/7. … I’ve been really, really happy with the growth that a lot of those players made over the last couple of years.

“(We have) tons of confidence in sending players down there, knowing they’re going to be competitive.”

The last three seasons the Hogs have collected 79, 79, and 85 points, and have not won a playoff series. And that's despite the noise the Hawks make every spring about sending any young player there for the Hogs "playoff push." And they've sent one player to the Hawks, Alex Vlasic, whom you would describe as a sure thing. This is on par with Kenny Williams trumpeting his ability to spot an All-Star with his eyes whenever he wants. This is the good stuff, people.

Anyway, let's try to steer this ship back on track, though I've been trying to do that for some 15 years now with little to no success. To repeat a point I've already made a couple times, there is simply no way to prove that if Alex Vlasic had spent the 2022-2023 season with the Hawks, he would have looked just as good paired with Seth Jones all season and cemented himself as a piece going forward. But because he went to Rockford and then came back up for last season, and it's the only evidence we have, therefore the Hawks can claim that this is the only true and righteous path for all their defensive prospects. There is no counterweight.

It's also important to be clear on what Vlasic has been and will be. Vlasic is a second-round pick, not a top-ten pick, and in the NHL that makes a world of difference. This isn't the NFL. Vlasic also was more a second-pairing guy at BU than the unquestioned guy, which Korch was in the WHL, even if Hockey East might be a little above the W. Vlasic wasn't at a WJC, Korch was on a WJC-winning team. The pedigree on these two just isn't the same.

Going forward, as impressive as Vlasic was last season that was mostly a morass, he's still a second-pairing d-man on a team that means to do anything that matters. He may be a very good one, and even one of the league's best when it all shakes out, but that's what he is. Korch is supposed to be the top-pairing engine who pushes the play for 20-25 minutes a night. Maybe Vlasic maxes out as his partner one day, and that would be great, but he is still a definite rhythm guitarist, maybe even a bassist, to the EVH that Korch is projected to be. And really had better be.

This is where I fear "Hawks exceptionalism" is rearing its ugly head again. Because the Hawks haven't had a player like Korch, or what Korch should be, in this generation. They'll try and connect him to Duncan Keith, because they can't help themselves when it comes to trying link to players from the glorious past to try to get fans excited, but that's wholly inaccurate.

Keith was a limited offensive player who just happened to be a magnificent skater with otherworldly instincts, and whose offense sprung from his aggressive defense. His assist totals were a product of stoning plays at his own blue line and making the simple pass to start a counter the other way, if it didn't spring from the initial turnover that he caused. He was not Beta Cale Makar. Do the Hawks even know how to develop a player like this? They never have before, as we all shake and shiver from the Adam Boqvist experience. And again, Kyle Davidson is from only within these walls.

Korch is going to be far more of a creator, wheeling on his own up the ice with the puck and joining the rush. While the Hawks want to stress how his defensive game struggled last season, in all honesty they shouldn't have been all that concerned with it. Instead, they should have been pushing him to live on the edge and cowboy up the ice whenever he could, so he could learn the limits on that side of the game, which is going to be the far more important side of his future contributions. I don't want to be Brad Pitt screaming at Art Howe, "HIS DEFENSE DOES NOT MATTER!" It does, but not as much as what his offense will be. He also should have been QB-ing any power play unit all season, because quite frankly Seth Jones isn't all that good at it.

Wyatt Kaiser is also mentioned in this article, because he spent most of the season in Rockford as well and is used as a success story. But it wasn't hard to see in the early part of the season that Kaiser was a real player, even if he maxes out as a third-pairing one. Kaiser's problem wasn't being overmatched, it was being paired with ogre Jarred Tinordi and whatever other fuckup the Hawks had to beg to play for them. When he came back up, Kaiser spent most of his time with Nikita Zaitsev, who while hardly hockey royalty wasn't a complete idiot. Kaiser with a competent partner all season would have looked like Kaiser in March without the interlude in Rock Vegas.

Looking at first or second d-men drafted recently around the same spot Korch was, one sees names like Luke Hughes, Jamie Drysdale, Jake Sanderson, Bowen Byram, Moritz Seider, as well as David Jiricek, who was taken one pick ahead of Korch. Seider and Jiricek spent chunks of a season in the A, but both were coming from lower-level European leagues and had a North American rink to come to terms with. The rest jumped right into the league when they were done with their junior or college teams. Byram may have been derailed by injury and will have to reestablish himself in Buffalo, but Drysdale, Hughes, and Sanderson are major pieces for the teams where they are already.

But again, there's no risk for the Hawks in the public eye. They're not playing for anything this year, so no one's going to be able to point to the production they missed out on by not having Korch around as the reason they missed the playoffs. Korch is so talented that he'll look great in the AHL, and then probably great in the NHL whenever that happens again, and they'll be able to bathe in confirmation bias.

Their plan of having Korch and Levshunov pair together to rise together is just about the silliest thing in the world, and no other team has ever done this with a top pairing for a team that's going to compete for the big prizes. But there's no way to show the Hawks and the world that it's stupid unless they both get injured by some drooling ass clown trying to scratch out fourth-line minutes somewhere by attempting to behead anyone he can find. Those tend to run rampant in the AHL.

Kyle Davidson knows that, and it lets him move the goalposts back another season should he wish, which is the thing he seems to be best at so far. It also may let him claim to have saved the Hawks from the mythical salary cap doomsday two seasons in the future that never was a thing but that he made fans scared of. That's his other signature move.

-Programming note: I'm not gonna be able to see the Hawks preseason opener live. No, it's not a CHSN thing...well, it kind of is but I would be able to watch off the site if I were available. But I'm going to see Soul Coughing with friend of the program Matt McClure, so whatever thoughts I might have will probably have to wait until Friday. And that's if I can get to any sort of replay. Maybe we'll talk about CHSN tomorrow, that's an idea!

Foofaraw - The NWSL Keeps Calling Me

I find myself watching more and more NWSL games these days. And it's for some of the reasons that many people are watching it, because it's one of the best women's soccer leagues in the world, their marketing is effective, and I get more and more familiar with the players and teams every year.

But there's another aspect, one in which MLS could learn a lesson or two but won't. You may have missed it a couple weeks ago as the league and NWSL players' union signed a new CBA. And there are plenty of cool things in there that makes life better for players, with rising salaries and expanding benefits and such.

But there were two new parts of it that drew me in more than I had been before. One was that the league abolished the draft completely, and two was that trades cannot happen without the ok from every player involved. NWSL players can't just be told to pack their bags for Louisville.

The reasons for this were quite clear. The NWSL feels the need to compete with the WSL in England to be the best women's league in the world, and they know they need to emulate their system more to compete for the same talent. Foreign players probably were curious why their teammates, or themselves, could just be traded at a moment's notice to a place they never considered going. NWSL teams are in better position to compete for younger players who might have considered going to Europe for their first pro experience because they actually got to choose to do so instead of being assigned somewhere.

But as a soccer fan, it feels like the league and union cares about the things I care about, which is watching the best product possible and one that more resembles what I'm familiar with and enjoy. Drafts in every league should be punted into the sun, and in adulthood I've always thought the trade-system was cruel and archaic once I became familiar with the transfer-system of the soccer world.

When it feels like a league values what you do as a fan, it's only natural to want to consume it more. Maybe I'm an outlier as to who is new to watching the league, or watching the league more. But contrast that with MLS, which barely if ever does anything that a huge swath of soccer fans enjoy, and it's stark. Fuck, throw MLB on the pile, because how many things can you count that Rob Manfred has done that we as fans wanted? Pitch clock and then....DUHHHRRRRRRR.

Sure, NWSL still has a playoff-system that can render much of the regular season moot. They still have a salary cap, though one that is going up. I don't know that a fall-to-spring schedule would work in either domestic soccer league, but July in Houston is no more pleasant than November or early December here would be.

Still, MLS bleats on about one day becoming one of the top leagues in the world, and yet rarely takes big steps to come anywhere close. The NWSL has a leg up in that it's played in the country with the most famous national team and most of their players stay here, but it's also taking active steps to improve. To not only keep its talent, but bring more in. These are things fans notice. At least this one did.

Hell, maybe even one day the Red Stars will move closer to the city than Peoria.

Remember to share and retweet and forward this and all that good stuff. It's the best way to get the word out, and also mention it's gonna be free for a while. Join me or die, can you do any less?