Pull Your Own Rope, To All Those Cubs Looking In The Night
Wrapping up the Hawks puke-a-thon in B.C., then thoughts on the Cubs before they start their season in Japan...then pause it...then start it for real.
Sector 1901 - Pull Your Own Rope
So just to be clear, ever since Nick Foligno sprinted in front of every mic and camera he could find in the Hawks' dressing room to tell the world that everything was fine now that Seth Jones's cursed presence had been eradicated from the room and it was all ok now because Fliggy was back and he was overseeing everything, the Hawks simply forgot to show up to San Jose for a good 30 minutes and then managed all of 19 shots against the Canucks in a game they trailed for two-thirds of. Oh, and his little sermon from the mount came after they got shutout in Colorado.
Where are you pulling this rope, asshole?
The stats will show that Arvid Soderblom shot his season save-percentage in the face with an elephant gun, giving up six goals on 15 shots. Perhaps some will call it a superlative defensive effort, pointing to the pittance of shots against. I'd call it a low energy game where the Canucks never seemed to bothered and knew they had this one won after getting two quick goals in the 1st. To each their own.
It is still mind-numbing that the Hawks struggle to even get 20 shots in a game. The Canucks average the second-lowest amount of shots per game, a real trick with Quinn Hughes on the team but we've been over what Rick Tocchet is, and yet the Hawks trail them by a full shot per game. The Hawks are on verging on having the worst shots-per-game mark in the last 10 years. They're 0.2 shots ahead of the '14-'15 Sabres, who amassed 54 points.
The San Jose Sharks, who have a worse roster than the Hawks, average three more shots per game. So do the Flyers, and those rosters are closer than you think. The Kraken, the Ducks are also three shots per game ahead of the Hawks.
The Hawks haven't had more than 25 shots in a game since February 23rd. The last time they got 30 or more was February 7th. Would you like to know the last time they had 35 or more? October 19th, against the Sabres. They've had 30 or more shots in a game 10 times out of 67. The Sharks, supposedly a team that's behind the Hawks in their arc, have done it 17 times.
Sure, the Hawks don't have enough talent. But they have enough to threaten more than this. Sure, they play pretty conservatively because they now have had two coaches trying to avoid being embarrassed. That's not helping them progress to anything, but at least it's an explanation. Most of all though, that's a sign of a team that a lot of nights just isn't trying hard enough. Any collection of 18 morons should be able to occasionally get over 25 shots, if they really want to. Fuck, last year's collection of fuckwits averaged over 26 shots per game. They got over 35 shots eight times. They got 30 or over 25 times. That collection didn't have Nazar, or Teravainen, or Donato playing for a contract, or a couple other pieces.
Earlier in the season, it felt like a team that wasn't being deployed correctly, even if the results would have been modest at best anyway, Now it's a team that looks like it knows it isn't being deployed correctly, isn't going to, knows the results don't really matter, and just goes through the motions more nights than not.
Y'know, when friend of the program Jay Zawaski went on his rant after the Utah/93 attempts against game that reached a level of viral across the socials, he used the word "uncoachable." It's becoming clear that this is what he was referring to. This team just isn't playing very hard, and no one seems to care because Fliggy is out here to tell everyone it's ok as long as his hand is on the wheel.
I got a rope you can pull.
Make no mistake, this is a wasted year, much like the Bears. The Hawks told their fans they would jump to 65-70 points this year, and next year would at least wave at the playoff chase. They've now lost out on that first step. Now they'd have to improve some 30-35 points next year to even get to within hailing distance of the playoffs next year. No team ever improves that much. Maybe once in a Halley's comet they do. Kyle From Chicago has successfully backed this all up a season.
-The story heading into this one was Anders Sorensen shifting Bedard to the wing on Frank Nazar's line. Honestly, it's worth a try. While Foligno is busy pulling his rope, Bedard once against has gone cold and has four points in his last 12 games He has two goals in six weeks.
Much like it did for Nazar when he was in a little deep, relieving Bedard of a center's responsibility might get him out of his own head, get his feet moving a little better, let him worry about just finding soft spots in the offensive zone. Considering the Hawks are likely to get a chance to draft another foundational center in June, maybe it's worth at least seeing if Bedard's future is as a wing. Maybe he's just too small and not quite fast enough to make up for it to thrive as a center. But in the short-term, it's just a way to make things simpler for him.
Two shots, two lazy minors, another 10-minute misconduct was the result.
Gee, it wouldn't be that Bedard has had enough of this shit, would it?
-Bedard is so broken, this was basically his game with the puck:
I don't have a problem with Bedard ignoring Bertuzzi at the wall. Everyone should ignore Bertuzzi. But this is a 2-on-2 on the power play, he's got space. ATTACK! Instead, Bedard just skates to the point and waits. A fully-functioning Bedard gets north-south and finds a way to get this to his forehand to shoot. Or he gets to the net on his backhand. This broken version waits for help, takes the safe play, and lets the chance pass him by.
At least he's pulling the rope, though.
-Back to our normal targets. Here's Bertuzzi a few seconds before the opening goal:
He clearly sees Veleno fuck up and cause a board battle when he just needed to clear the zone. He never looks to see that it's Quinn Hughes floating out by the line, and realize that it's QUINN FUCKING HUGHES! Just puck-watching. He's not a guy that you can leave to try and intercept a puck for, especially when you're Tyler Bertuzzi and you skate like the mob just tried to chuck you into the river:
-Honestly, maybe they should send Levshunov down. Whatever keeps him away from Sorensen and his amazing ability to take the aggressiveness out of his d-men. This is in the lead-up to the second Canucks goal.
It's a goal that Soderblom should have stopped, but this is way too big of a gap. It continues a pattern. When both Louis Crevier and Ethan Del Mastro first came up, they showed an appetite to step up and close plays off at their line. That has eroded for both. The third Canucks goal was a result of Martinez and Crevier giving Connor Garland 10 feet of space at the line.
The Canucks 4th goal was a result of Levshunov getting beat like a rented mule by Pettersson, which will happen, But it was passive from Levshunov. Waist-bent stick-reaching. The Hawks can't let Sorensen get any level of claws into this kid. Otherwise the next coach (which is probably going to be Sorensen anyway so we're all fucked) will have to undo all that.
One reason the Hawks average a shot every three minutes or whatever is they don't force nearly enough turnovers nearly high enough on the ice to turn things around quickly. They're always having to work 200 feet, which they can't do. That puts them in forechecking situations, which they can't do.
Would having d-men consistently step up and trying to be aggressive and force things at the line maybe cause them to get beat sometimes and cause odd-mans from the blue line in? Of course. Who fucking cares? How could it be worse? Get beat by six, but at least play the way you mean to when things matter again. What are they holding onto here?
-Sorensen's only button is to immediately hit the line blender after hitting the blender before the game. He changed them up midway through the second. When you're a coach with pedigree, you can do this and your team will likely respond. When you're an ineffectual pinhead that the team is actively ignoring, it will be greeted with blank looks.
This is rotten.
Between G-Man And Nisei - Let's Get Started...Kinda
By the time tomorrow's newsletter launches into your inbox (and into your heart), the Cubs should be in about the 7th inning or so of their first regular season game. It's always weird when the season starts like this, because they'll come back home and play some more spring training games before getting going for real in Phoenix. You'll pause when you see the "0-2" or "1-1" record then and remember that these happened.
Anyway, my guess is that it will be a "successful" season for the Cubs, based on how they define it. We can say for sure that Jed Hoyer is fearing for his job, even though he's basically done what he was told by his boss and kept the payroll low enough. He hasn't been able to keep up the appearance of success while doing so, though, which would be a home playoff game or two. It's not an easy needle to thread, though it's likely Hoyer just isn't capable.
Thus the Kyle Tucker trade, which is a slight improvement after trading Cody Bellinger. Had the Cubs gotten ambitious and not decided having too many good players was a problem, imagine what the Yankees would have given up for Bellinger after a month or two of the season when Giancarlo Stanton's elbows fully turn into oatmeal. Oh well.
Still, Matt Shaw doesn't have to be anything more than ok to be an improvement on what the Cubs had at third last year. If Pete Crow-Armstrong catches everything in center, that should be enough. Miguel Amaya should be better with another year's experience under his belt. Assuming Michael Busch doesn't fall off a cliff or Dansby Swanson forgets how to catch the ball, the everyday lineup should at worst be where it was, plus the difference between Tucker and Bellinger. That might be enough to go from 83 to 86 or 87 wins. That should make all the difference, really. Though I keep thinking the Brewers will back up and they never quite do.
Tucker is here for one year with Hoyer hoping he can be a bridge to the likes of Ben Brown, Cade Horton, PCA or Kevin Alcantara, Shaw and one or two others taking over. He's going to hope a fair few of those names flash this year and then are ready to go big-time in 2026. That's if he's still got a job, which Tucker is supposed to keep him in.
That could be off-set by some backward steps in the rotation. Shota Imanaga isn't going to run a 80.2 percent left-on-base percentage again. If Wrigley doesn't play so miserly against hitters again, he'll suffer a bit (he ran a 4.34 FIP on the road last year, which isn't bad but isn't the 3.21 at home). Justin Steele is pretty much a lock these days, except for the amount of innings he'll throw, but that's every pitcher. Same goes for Taillon, though he's a bit more of a sure thing for innings.
If the Cubs get anything from Brown or Horton or someone from the bottom of the rotation, that improvement in wins becomes more baked in.
The pen? Whoever knows about a pen? My hunch is that Ryan Pressly might be a touch cooked, but there's always a chance one or two guys come from nowhere to shore that up. Or five guys fall apart at once. It's a bullpen, that's what they do. Even the Dodgers can't be automatic out there.
They'll have to ride out a pretty brutal opening schedule. Before April is over, they'll play the D-Backs, Dodgers (7 times), Rangers, Padres, and Phillies, all teams that should be in or around the playoffs when the 162 are over. They'll get to go to Sacramento as well, which will just be weird. If the opening month gets a little rocky, how big of a panic will set in? Counsell is still a made man, but not everyone above him is.
In MLB these days, a team can biff the opening month of a season. Even the opening third. So the Cubs would have to be pretty bad, even in that tough first month, to really screw themselves.
Off we go.
