The Entire Spectrum Of Bad

The Hawks' weekend spanned all the avenues a bad hockey team can travel down, both good and bad.

Sector 1901 - The Entire Spectrum of Bad

When it gets this late in another lost season, the Hawks have a couple types of games to experience for the rest of the schedule. One is what they saw on Saturday, where they'll face a team either competing for a playoff spot or tightening up their games for the playoffs to come and basically skate the Hawks out of the building. The other is what they saw Sunday, against a fellow no-hoper that has a very good chance of getting a little loose. Sunday got more than a little, but because Spencer Knight is way better than Ivan Fedotov, and maybe a little to do with being at home, the Hawks got to taste two points for the first time in what feels like forever.

Let's run through what matters, or as close to what matters, as we can.

-There were a couple themes that ran through both games, broadcast-wise. One was the retirement announcement of Pat Maroon. It was something of a story because it came out of the blue during an interview with Darren Pang, and it happened to be in St. Louis where he's from. And that's really the end of the interest of it.

Instead, we were treated to a game-length tribute to a guy who has been a fourth-liner for about 16 different teams in the past decade, and who means nothing to the Hawks. It even bled into the first period/period and a half of Sunday's broadcast, and there's just no way that Hawks fans can care all that much.

Sure, it's a nice moment that Maroon got to have one last game and a sendoff in St. Louis, and that's about all that should have come across our screens. But because he's clearly a buddy of Darren Pang's, it just never stopped. I guess when Pang got to (reportedly) punt a play-by-play guy to the curb (Chris Vosters) and pick his own (Rick Ball), he gets to run the broadcast as he sees fit. We all just have to suffer through it.

-The other facet that the broadcast has been in love with harping on in recent games is pointing out that the Hawks defense now has five of its six skaters 23 years of age or younger. It's either being used as an excuse or a boast, depending on what's happening in the game. It's being treated as some kind of unique/experimental ploy that no other team has ever thought of.

But it always should have looked like this. This is what a rebuild is supposed to look like. A raft of kids, a sprinkling of vets to support them, and find out what you have. This isn't some revolution that Kyle From Chicago just thought of. It should have looked like this October, instead of plaguing us with Martinez and Brodie and Maroon and Smith and the other punters the front office saddled this team with. This should be standard and barely worth a mention, given where the Hawks are in the standings and their process.

-The weekend saw the continuation of Connor Bedard on a wing, and it's probably time to put it away. Anders Sorensen went this route for Frank Nazar a while ago to try and simplify things for him for a reset period, and it's had some effect for the rookie. Bedard and Nazar had a pretty good game in St. Louis to be fair, but much less of one against the Flyers. Yes, Bedard scored, but if this was meant to get him more shooting opportunities and open things up for him by lessening his responsibilities all over the ice, it's not really doing so.

That said, his goal against the Flyers is why everyone around the Hawks has been begging the team to find a way to get him 4-5 shots per game, and for Bedard to be selfish enough to fire away that much. Beating NHL goalies clean from beyond the circles with a wrister with no screen, even if it is Fedotov, isn't done all that much these days. Bedard is one of a handful of players who should be able to do so on the reg. How often do you recall him letting loose from the circles this season? Moving to wing just hasn't gotten him the looks we had hoped for.

-Though the Hawks put up a touchdown and an extra-point against the Flyers and had a three-goal lead early in the 3rd, that doesn't mean anyone should want to see them turtle in the way they did for the remainder of the game. They only had four shots in the frame, and carried Corsi and xG in the 20s for it as well. That's not good enough. It's understandable that a team that had lost seven in a row and had a third period lead simply wanted to get out of dodge intact and would feel some nerves doing so. But there's nothing wrong with continuing to attack and being aggressive with a lead. It's not like the Hawks are hanging onto a wildcard spot here.

-It was interesting that as the Hawks turned over the 2nd period on the Flyers, their coach called a timeout to try and spur his young team into giving a shit. That is something Sorensen couldn't figure out during the losing streak when multiple occasions called for it. The Flyers responded by getting a goal and pulling within one for at least a short time. I'm fairly sure Torts would wear my ass out by Thanksgiving if he were Hawks coach, but that's a far better illustration of how to keep a developing team's eye on the ball.

-That said, he's got some work to do. What would you call this defensive coverage?

-I'm going to sound like a real asshole here, but that is my chosen lot in life. Though he potted twice on the power play, it's worth asking what the point is of having Ryan Donato on PP1 over Nazar. Nazar is currently this team's #1 center, he and Bedard have found something of an understanding, so why not see what they have with the man-advantage. With 11 games left they should all be about getting ready for next season. They've already figured out to get Levshunov out there ahead of Vlasic. It's the same vein.

-Arvid Soderblom was pretty leaky in St. Louis, and three of his last four starts have been ugly. He's started 33 times this season after starting 32 games last year, so fatigue wouldn't be a part of it, you wouldn't think. His rebound control was just not where it needed to be. Soderblom still needs a strong finish with his last three or four starts, whatever he gets, to assure that next year's duo is him and Knight. There's still a chance that they try to justify the Brossoit signing or Commesso works his way into something during camp. As good as Soderblom has been at times, his season SV% is now .899 and he's below water when it comes to goals saved above expected. He's not guaranteed anything.

-Let's give Kyle his flowers on Ilya Mikheyev, who has turned into a very solid third-liner and penalty killer. He makes a difference most nights. Will be quite the watch come next year, when Mikheyev is in the last year of his contract and is the exact type of player who gets pretty valuable around the deadline. He'll also be 31, and this is almost certainly as good as he'll ever be. Could be Donato all over again.

-It's pretty impressive that Teravainen has piled up 40 assists getting only to play with third-liners mostly, and it's still mind-boggling that he hasn't gotten more run with the two kids, who are still the most offensively gifted players on the team.

-Speaking of offensive gifts, Tyler Bertuzzi's goal against Philly was only more infuriating. Ok, Nike Seeler didn't defend it much better than an inflatable wavy-arm guy would, but to be able to shift to the backhand and then go top cheese off the backhand and then realize he'll only do that once a month when he feels like it in a no-stakes game lets you know what kind of player we're dealing with here.

All right, that's enough of that.