Well So Much For Noble Steed

As we feared, the Hawks go unexciting for their coach, one who can't say no, and the Leafs expectedly bit the dust.

Let's get the good news on the possible hiring of Jeff Blashill as the next Hawks coach out of the way. Sadly, they don't have much to do with Blashill personally, but we work with what we have. One, the NHL is littered with coaches who took a major leap from their first job to their second. Mike Sullivan, Bruce Cassidy, Jim Montgomery all come immediately to mind.

Except Sullivan did have a 104-point season in his first as B's coach in 2004. Cassidy had a 92-point one with the Caps. Montgomery's Stars were quite good, he was just too drunk to finish the season. So...hmmm. Does Blashill's 93 points in '15-'16 qualify? We'll come back to that.

Ok, beyond that, Scott Arniel was in his second job this season when the Jets won the Presidents' Trophy. John Hynes, who I still think is an utter moron, did lead a pretty limited Preds team to the playoffs twice in his second job and this Wild team in his third. Travis Green got the Senators back into the playoffs this season in his second full-time job (he was an interim for the Devils). The "second job" aspect in the NHL is usually real.

Second, Blashill has been an assistant exactly where you'd want to draw from, and that's under Jon Cooper. Cooper might still be the best coach in the game, and if I wanted the Hawks to talk to Jeff Halpern, who has been Cooper's assistant forever, I can't really argue with talking to Blashill, who has head coaching experience. He would have to be a real moron to be working with one of the three best coaches in the league for three seasons and not learn anything. And he just might be!

Now, to quote Armand Assante from Striptease (a really underrated movie because it was billed as "Demi Moore does Showgirls" instead of the Carl Hiaasen book it actually is!), "I've got good news and mediocre news."

I guess you can, if so inclined, read whatever you want out of Blashill's stint in Detroit. His first Red Wings team was led by the decomposing corpse-duo of Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk. Neither of whom topped 50 points and yet still led the team in scoring. Somehow, that team cobbled together 93 points, took advantage of a terrible Atlantic Division (the two wildcards that year came from the Metro with 100 and 96 points) to nab the Wings' last trip to the playoffs. They then got clobbered by the Lightning in the first round, and that's been about as good as it's been for the Wings since (felt good to write that, still).

They got significantly worse instantly, spending the next three seasons in the low-70s point-range, as Zetterberg and Datsyuk retired and pretty much nothing was left behind. Then there was the utter disaster of '19-'20, where they had just 39 points when the season was halted. By the time the NHL got back to a full 82-game slate, the Wings were back in the mid-70s for points and then Blashill was out of a job. The Wings have improved since, but they've also added way more to what Blashill had.

It is true that Blashill was basically given nothing on the roster. Not only was he hired just in time to watch Zetterberg and Datsyuk age out of stardom and then leave, his two best d-men were Niklas Kronwall and Mike Green. He basically was given a rookie Dylan Larkin and told to make it work. Which is handy, because at this point we're all wondering if Connor Bedard can even be Dylan Larkin.

Some of those teams in Detroit are littered with players we now know couldn't be turned into anything other than mulch. Tyler Bertuzzi (also handy), Andreas Anathasiou, Anthony Mantha, Luke Glendening, Michael Rasmussen, etc. No coach is doing much with that.

Blashill's last season saw the introduction of Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider, and the latter hasn't really been any better than he was under Blashill. Don't know if that means anything at all, but it's at least worth mentioning.

Now for the worse part. For his entire run in Detroit, Wings fans consistently complained about how boring Blashill's teams were. It's hard to know how exciting they could have been with the roster decrepit as it was, but those Wings teams certainly were boring. For the three seasons from 2016 to 2019 before things really cratered, the Wings ranked 29th in xG/60 at even-strength. They were 26th in that category in Blashill's last season, when he at least had a fully-formed Larking and rookies Seider and Raymond.

It's hard to believe he could work under Cooper for three seasons and not be a little more aggressive when he gets his own reins again, but it's also hockey and no one ever strays too far from their nature.

Look, it's not like the Hawks can't use a defensive tightening (though Blashill's Wings teams weren't all that defensively stout either, but look at those rosters again). They had a wonky system in their own end that saw them chasing behind their own net a lot and leaving acres open in the slot. Both Richardson and eventually Sorensen sank into conservative neutral zone forechecks in the hopes of limiting chances and try to stay in games. It's not clear that Blashill will be any different, but if he can tune up the Hawks in their own zone, that's not a nothing.

There isn't any coach who would walk into his opening presser at the UC and say, "It's going to be fucking ya-ha time and Spencer and Arvid on their own, fuckos!" Pretty much every coach stresses defense before offense, at least in the press. But any coach who only stresses defense and how to prevent goals here with the talent that is here right now is missing the point. We have no idea if Blashill looks at the Hawks blue line and had some creative ideas on how to use it on both sides of the puck. It just feels like he wouldn't. We won't know until he puts everyone on the ice, if he's hired.

There's no evidence that Blashill would have any idea how to soup up the offense and how to deploy a very unique blue line. Again, to be fair to him, he had nothing like this in Detroit. Even with Seider and Filip Hronek, Blashill was also working with Marc Staal, Nick Leddy, and Danny DeKeyser. The only hope is that Blashill has laid out something in the interview process that has piqued Kyle Davidson's interest. Assuming Davidson is even looking for that, or even knows to. Perhaps the biggest problem with the Hawks right now is we have to do so much projection on hope.

If Blashill is simply walking in here as a "steady hand" to have the Hawks deployed in a 1-1-3 in the neutral zone to once again try to lose games 2-1, there's no fucking point. We don't know that's what he'll do. There's just no sauce to this. Or no known sauce, let's say.

The real fear is that after David Carle, a genuinely tantalizing coaching prospect, told the Hawks to get stuffed after they were very confident he would come to Chicago, the Hawks simply are interviewing and likely hiring a veteran coach who can't really say no to them. There won't be a second public rejection from Blashill. Who else is talking to him?

Davidson certainly knew that Mike Sullivan or Rick Tocchet were never going to consider the Hawks (thank god in the case of the latter). They've tried the new coach thing the last four times they've hired someone, from Colliton to King to Richardson to Sorensen. The appeal of someone, anyone, who's done the job before is obvious. But that's balanced with the Hawks desire to get involved with a coach that has experience that also isn't going to laugh them off the phone when they call.

Jeff Blashill isn't a name that's going to excite anyone. The Hawks aren't in a position to hire anyone who's going to excite anyone, not after Carle decided he was better off in college, anyway. But that doesn't mean Blashill can't do the job of taking the Hawks from A to B. We can worry about B to C when it's even on the radar. He has far more to work with here already, in terms of young players, than he ever did in Detroit. That's before Davidson has what should be an active summer. At least we hope (there's that word again).

This is just where the Hawks are. They can't get the sexy candidate. They haven't shown enough to lure that coach. But hey, the Cubs needed Ricky Renteria to clean up the Dale Sveum mess before they could get Joe Maddon.

As expected, the Leafs ate shit in a Game 7, which is kind of their thing. I've been beating this drum for a few years now, and don't feel the need to repeat it verbatim. So let me put it this way: Watching Seth Jones last night jump the play at every line, forcing turnovers and mistakes and turning the Panthers around quickly and forcing odd-man rushes for his forwards, the Leafs need to ask themselves who on their blue line is doing that? Morgan Rielly's dumpy ass? Jake McCabe on his stomach? Turover-machine OEL? Brandon Carlo is still stuck in his own corner and will be until the 4th of July.

That isn't to absolve "The Core 4." They have their issues, and needed to do more. But Tkachuk and Barkov weren't exactly great in this series, and got all the support they needed elsewhere. The Cats and Leafs pay Mikkola and McCabe the same amount. Which one would you rather have? Nate Schmidt costs a quarter of Brandon Carlo. Max Domi makes $700K less than both Sam Bennett and Carter Verhaege. There was nothing stopping the Leafs from finding their own Bennetts and Verhaeges. They found Domi, Reaves, and Jarnkrok. Don't tell me they didn't have space when they pay their goalies less than $3M and the Panthers are paying theirs over $11M.

The Leafs are going to let Marner and Tavares walk. They'll have some space. They'll fill Marner's spot with someone who isn't as good, and end up right back here next spring. At least until they completely remake their blue line.

The Leafs media can gnash their teeth over the past decade all they want. The question needs to be asked, "When did the Leafs lose to a worse team?" The bubble season is the only one, and that should be thrown out. All those Bruins teams were better than they were, which might be why all those Game 7s were in Boston. That Lightning team they lost to was better. This Panthers team has been better twice, no matter what the standings say.

The fact that the Leafs haven't been able to play above their heads does fall on Marner, Matthews, Tavares, and Nylander. The fact that they have needed to falls on the rest of the team, and those who put it together in the first place.