Screaming At The Rain, Counting On The Dregs, And Other Mishegas

We've got a wrap on the Hawks' Saturday night loss to the Sabres, some thoughts on the MLB Playoffs, and whatever else we can scrape out of the barrel...

Sector 1901 - Screaming At The Rain

For anyone new here, this section usually leads off the newsletter and it's where we talk about the Hawks.

In an NHL season, most games can't have an overarching theme or meaning. And that's good, because otherwise it would be exhausting. The Hawks played pretty well on Saturday night, but they didn't score enough, mostly because Connor Bedard's line didn't score. When that happens, the Hawks are very unlikely to win. It's nice to get two fourth-line goals, but two goals and $2.50 most nights gets you on the bus home. Not to put too much on the kid, but that's going to be the deal for his whole career, no matter how deep the Hawks eventually become. Anyway, bullets time!

I know this is my personal quest, and I should get over it because Nick Foligno has been mostly good this season on Bedard's line, but the broadcast was very excited to bolster the captain's first intermission interview and whatever they dreamt he said in the room during the break, as he was on his usual "standards" rant. But I'm not sure what he was so angry about. The Hawks outshot the Sabres 12-9, they dominated the xG fight in the opening 20 (not that Foligno would know that but you'd think he'd sense it), and they only trailed thanks to a couple bad bounces and Tage Thompson's laser accuracy. It happens.

And yes, the Hawks were better in the 2nd period, and they tied the game, so I guess it worked, but this bullhorn can't be reached for every time something is only kinda-sorta bad because then it loses all meaning for when things have truly gone putrid.
Craig Smith's first goal wasn't just the result of a nifty pass from Lukas Reichel, but from Alex Vlasic stonewalling a Buffalo rush right at his line. This is how Luke Richardson wants the Hawks to play, at least that's what we've been told (more on that in a bit). Keep the puck from getting in, turn around real quickly, catch the other team on the rush.

Vlasic's play kept the Sabres from getting set up in the neutral zone, which gave Reichel the time and space to zip a cross-ice pass that wouldn't have been available had the Sabres been back in their 1-2-2. Sadly, Vlasic is one of only two defenders who can do this right now consistently, but in due time...

The overall pattern of the game followed what the Hawks have been doing for the most part through their first six games. The attempts-share was basically even (the Hawks are below water in Corsi on the year), but the Hawks dominated the xG at evens (they're 12th in xG-percentage so far). They do that by mostly restricting chances to the outside and blocking a lot of shots, which...well, it's not really a recipe for big success down the road. And it's also kinda dull. It's fine for where this team is now but would be disappointing if that's the blueprint in the years to come. If you'd like a visual aid:

Ceding this many attempts isn't all that ambitious, not that this club is in a position to be that ambitious. But again, this season is about setting the foundations for what's to come. They're not going to play this way when the roster is more dynamic, right? The Hawks are going to be more aggressive in their zone, right? Right?

This is also my quest, and Tage Thompson's pass for the winning goal was absolutely gross, but if T.J. Brodie isn't going to be good in his own slot, what is it, you would say, he does here?

Bedard's night was kind of a microcosm of the Hawks overall. He got clubbed as far as attempts go, but he had a 77.0 xG-percentage. As long as he's creating or getting the better chances, fine, but this feels like a little too much on the back foot.
I know Caley Chelios works for the state media and is just going to parrot the talking points the organ-i-zation gives her. But the revisionist history gets old. On the pregame show, as she was defending Kyle Davidson ever expanding timeline, she said the Cup-winning "rebuild" took eight years. This is patently false, and it's time that all Hawks fans realize the creation of the three-time championship roster was maybe the biggest accidents in sports history.

Rebuilds don't tend to span over two GMs and an interim, as players were acquired under Mike Smith and Dale Tallon, with Pully in between.
And remember, coming out of the Great Bettman Lockout II, Tallon was very much not in a rebuild mode. He signed a bunch of tomato can vets to big contracts, totally misreading how the game would be in the "new" NHL. He pivoted after about 30 games, and it was that wildly wide-of-the-mark attempt at winning that made the Hawks so bad that they could draft Toews and Kane. The fact that under the surface both Smith and Tallon ended up drafting the players that would eventually fill out the 2010 roster seems an act of god by this point in time. Everything broke right, but it was hardly a plan, much less a rebuild. At least not on purpose.

Foofaraw - Counting On The Dregs

For those of you new here...well, don't worry, I haven't actually used this section before, as this is the first time I just have general baseball things to say rather than pointed ones about the two local nines. Welcome to the Monkey House.

As Cleveland bit the dust on Saturday night, I couldn't help but think (yes I sound like Carrie Bradshaw) that no matter how good a team's bullpen is, and the Guardians' was quite good during the season, it's still counting on the worst players on the roster to carry a team through. While it's not quite as true as it was in the past, it's still the case a good deal of the time that relievers are only relievers because they weren't good enough to be starters. We can safely say they're the most limited members of a baseball team.

And in October, when hitters are more locked in, and a more locked in Juan Soto, Aaron Judge, and Giancarlo Stanton are going to be beasts that aren't going to be regularly tamed by guys who just don't have that big of an arsenal. No matter how good that limited arsenal may be. When the volume gets turned up to 11, are you going with the MVPs or the guys who pitch 70 innings a year? Especially after they've been used more often and in ways they simply aren't the previous six months.

All of Soto's or Judge's or Stanton's big home runs in the ALCS came when a reliever simply couldn't put them away. Soto fouled off four straight pitches before his homer, just sliders and change-ups from Gaddis. Cade Smith had Giancarlo Stanton down 0-2 in Game 4 and he still went bridge. Emanuel Clase just spit up all over himself. There's a level in October that only some hitters can get to, and is unreachable for guys who are either on their second, third, or fourth teams or couldn't find a third pitch.

A great pen over the 162 just isn't a guarantee of anything. Nothing is. The Rangers pen last year ranked 24th in ERA, and ranked there even just after the deadline when they sort of remade their relievers. Houston in '22 had the best pen during the season. Atlanta's the year before was 10th. The Nats' in 2019 was so abysmal they just kept rerunning their starters in the playoffs.

During the season, teams only see a reliever twice at most during a three- or four-game set. In the playoffs they see them more often and combined with more pitches from guys who were just never designed to throw more pitches, it makes for a shaky foundation. Teams that navigate October just find two or three guys who for no good reason get everyone out for three weeks. Or was there some way to predict John Sborz would have a 0.75 ERA in the postseason last year?

Let England Shake

For the newbs, this is where I talk about Premier League happenings mostly to entertain myself.

While I'm chuffed as can be about Liverpool remaining top of the pops, and it's always groin-grabbingly enjoyable to beat Chelsea anytime anywhere, one can't help but wonder if the Reds aren't going to see a whole lot more of what Chelsea did to them.
Liverpool only had 43 percent of the possession, which is a freakish stat considering the game was at Anfield. And Chelsea was able to dance through Liverpool's press by taking their left-back, Malo Gusto, and pushing him up the field when Chelsea had the ball to line up next to Cole Palmer as a second #10/#8, forming a box with Romeo Lavia and Moises Caicedo at the base. Gusto's heatmap is hilarious:

It left Liverpool's #10, Dominik Szoboszlai, with two guys to mark in Caicedo and Lavia, while Curtis Jones and Ryan Gravenberch had to account for Palmer and Gusto and whoever was free between the two deeper Chelsea mids. The fullbacks couldn't help because the Chelsea wingers remained wide, and neither of the centerbacks stepped into midfield nor did either of Pool's central strikers drop off their initial pressing line.

This is what Arsenal did to Liverpool as well last year at the Emirates. The difference was this time, Chelsea just aren't as good or dangerous as Arsenal, and Liverpool play with two deep midfielders in front of a more protected back four. Chelsea could get around Liverpool's area, but not really into it. Arsenal is likely to try this exact thing next Sunday, but with more lethal attackers.

Of course, Arsenal are smarting themselves as they whiffed at Bournemouth and lost 2-0 after William Saliba got himself kicked to the curb. It's fine to rest Bukayo Saka, and the dude is probably exhausted after playing 871 matches the past three seasons, but they Gunners become way less dynamic without him. And their set-piece delivery takes a dip. Raheem Sterling is toast, and they're going to find this out anytime they start him against anything other than relegation fodder. Without both Saka and Ødegaard, there just wasn't a lot of there there, even with 10 men.
As for the other head of the title-chasing triple threat, Manchester City made heavy weather of beating the last-place team in Wolves. Which isn't a story in itself, as so did Liverpool when they were there. But it does feel a touch creakier than it did. The only clean sheet they've kept in the past month was against Slovan Bratislava. They've surrended 8.8 xGA against so far in eight Premier League matches, which over 38 games would be 41.8. That's pretty far behind the 35.6 and 32.1 xGA of the past two seasons.
It's City, and you always expect them to sharpen up around Christmas, but at the moment goals are gettable against them for just about anyone.

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