GDT: Hawks vs Sabres: 7:30PM CT on NBCSCH -- The Buffalo Herder

[Fortyfives]

How good is forsling eh?

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

I was surprised to see Rutta is 2nd on team in pts for a defenseman with 13 (Keith has 14)

 

[Putt Pirate]

Keith hasnt scores a goal in 9 months. Seabrook has maybe one this year? Easy to surpass those lofty numbers.

 

[LDF]

Keith hasnt scores a goal in 9 months. Seabrook has maybe one this year? Easy to surpass those lofty numbers.

i am starting to convince myself in thinking that reducing Seabs mins may be helping him.

 

[SAADfather]

I don't get how after losing 5 straight that Kempny STILL couldn't crack the lineup. At this point I just wanna see him flourish elsewhere because unfortunately it's probably not gonna be here.

 

[SAADfather]

I'm blaming whoever joked about Osterle coming in instead of Kempny.



I don't even have words

 

[plank]

I don't get how after losing 5 straight that Kempny STILL couldn't crack the lineup. At this point I just wanna see him flourish elsewhere because unfortunately it's probably not gonna be here.

I'm blaming whoever joked about Osterle coming in instead of Kempny.



I don't even have words

You want to see him flourish elsewhere? is he a personal friend of yours?
Don't know if it's accurate but ESPN box score had him out with an illness last night not the usual scratched.

 

[SAADfather]

You want to see him flourish elsewhere? is he a personal friend of yours?
Don't know if it's accurate but ESPN box score had him out with an illness last night not the usual scratched.

He's a good hockey player that I enjoy watching. Am I only allowed to be a fan of the crest and not the players? He's clearly never going to get in Qs good graces and falls into the mold of defenseman that Q doesn't like and find success elsewhere.

Diddnt know he was sick though.

 

[plank]

He's a good hockey player that I enjoy watching. Am I only allowed to be a fan of the crest and not the players? He's clearly never going to get in Qs good graces and falls into the mold of defenseman that Q doesn't like and find success elsewhere.

Diddnt know he was sick though.

you can do whatever makes you happy.

 

[CallMeShaft]

I'm blaming whoever joked about Osterle coming in instead of Kempny.



I don't even have words

Dammit ClydeLee!

This shit is ridiculous. Even if someone hates Kempny, how can you think Oesterle has shown enough of anything to get in over him. Q's gonna Q is all I can unfortunately say.

 

[CallMeShaft]

If this team misses the playoffs, it'll be because we went full LA Kings. Corsi beasts with nothing to show for it.

 

[Blackhawks]

If this team misses the playoffs, it'll be because we went full LA Kings. Corsi beasts with nothing to show for it.

If the Hawks miss the playoffs it’s because they suck, these numbers are a bunch of bogus, this team can’t create scoring chances, they are held to the perimeter in the O zone and scrambling all over the place in the D-zone. It’s idiotic to take those numbers more than a grain of salt, anyone in their right mind will watch the play can easily see that they are just plain horrendous...

 

[TheSting]

Keith hasnt scores a goal in 9 months. Seabrook has maybe one this year? Easy to surpass those lofty numbers.

Toews, Keith, Seabrook = The "core" in past stature only.

 

[TheSting]

If the Hawks miss the playoffs it’s because they suck, these numbers are a bunch of bogus, this team can’t create scoring chances, they are held to the perimeter in the O zone and scrambling all over the place in the D-zone. It’s idiotic to take those numbers more than a grain of salt, anyone in their right mind will watch the play can easily see that they are just plain horrendous...

Yep it comes down to goals scored and wins & losses. Hard to win if you can't score (see Cleveland Bears)...it's the only stat that matters.

 

[Pez68]

If this team misses the playoffs, it'll be because we went full LA Kings. Corsi beasts with nothing to show for it.

And the LA Kings, with a new coach, are suddenly cashing in on the possession numbers they've been putting up forever... Strange how that works. Almost like shot volume isn't the end-all-be-all of hockey, and you need to find a system that generates quality scoring chances, and not just shots on goal from anywhere.

The Hawks have been awful the last 10 games, and Corsi says they are killing it... lol

 

[featherhawk]

osterle over kempny, Gustafson, pokka or snugg is a freaking travesty imo.

Why the hell do mcd and Stan have q around still?

The players clearly don't buy what q is saying, this is just delaying possible progress

 

[CallMeShaft]

If the Hawks miss the playoffs it’s because they suck, these numbers are a bunch of bogus, this team can’t create scoring chances, they are held to the perimeter in the O zone and scrambling all over the place in the D-zone. It’s idiotic to take those numbers more than a grain of salt, anyone in their right mind will watch the play can easily see that they are just plain horrendous...

And the LA Kings, with a new coach, are suddenly cashing in on the possession numbers they've been putting up forever... Strange how that works. Almost like shot volume isn't the end-all-be-all of hockey, and you need to find a system that generates quality scoring chances, and not just shots on goal from anywhere.

The Hawks have been awful the last 10 games, and Corsi says they are killing it... lol

I never said corsi is the be all end all of what a good team is. Advanced stats are only part of the answer, but I'd sure as hell rather be at the top of that list then near the bottom.

Yep it comes down to goals scored and wins & losses. Hard to win if you can't score (see Cleveland Bears)...it's the only stat that matters.

I didn't know what you meant by Cleveland Bears so I googled it and it is NOT a sports team.

 

[piteus]

Yay ... the Hawks barely came back to beat a terrible team in OT at home. I'm trying to stay positive. It ain't easy.

 

[ModryJazyk]

I don't get how after losing 5 straight that Kempny STILL couldn't crack the lineup. At this point I just wanna see him flourish elsewhere because unfortunately it's probably not gonna be here.

Keith and Forsling are fixed and Murphy would lose all his remaining value in the pressbox, so if Hawks want to trade him someday, Q must keep him in the line up... Kempny is probably not happy he spends two seasons of his prime in the pressbox, so he might ask for trade or leave after the season.

 

[piteus]

Keith and Forsling are fixed and Murphy would lose all his remaining value in the pressbox, so if Hawks want to trade him someday, Q must keep him in the line up... Kempny is probably not happy he spends two seasons of his prime in the pressbox, so he might ask for trade or leave after the season.

Why would Kempny come back with Rutta, Forsling, and Keith ... with massive financial commitments to Seabrook and Murphy?

 

[hawksfan50]

SO the Hawks dominate in Corso. .but it has not produced elite scoring ...

Remember 2 things about Corsi....First it is only used as a possession metric for Even situations ...this our PP fails which also affect our offense are not included in Corsi..Thus we have 2 big Faiks. .Even Strength and PP...

Second ...Corsi uses shot attempts plus shots blocked plus missed shots in Comparing the differentials of those of our team vs. What we give up to the opps in these measures
..
It seems to me that our shooting % issues (finishing) negate the potential impact we should be getting in our Corsi advantage ....Hut remember Corsi also includes tge many shots we generate that get blocked or miss the net...In the case of our d-men shooting from the book t. ..blocked shots and missed shots if higher than the league average might indicate one source of tge scoring problem..but general shots from the point are not going to be considered high quality or danger area scoring chances anyway. AND since most point shots come bon the PP which is not part of Corsi ,we would think the problem of our Dmen getting too many point shots blocked or shots missing the net if they get through IS not a significant problem in our Even Strength scoring .. It could be a problem on the PP as the impact of attempted shots blocked or missing the net does impact a PP success by vastly reducing a scoring result from such shot attempts.

So this leaves blocked shots and missed shots as a potential problem of not enough scoring from our forwards who will get more high danger area scoring chances even at even strength...

So the isdues l with our forwards woukd be :
Do they get to high danger scoring areas enough on their shot attempts ...and do they get shots blocked or miss shots too much compared to forwards on the opposition based on some league average measure for this ......I guess we woukd need some deeper refinement in league stats data for this ...Anecdotally ..using the eyeball test ..it does seem we get enough shot attempts from high danger areas that our finishing shoukd be much higher..But Too Often pur guys miss the net ..even from 1-4 feet out ...Miss the net ...Fire it wide or over the net ..This Might also be a problem money the PP except that again by my eyeball test,we hardly get many quality chances because our PP sick so badly. .often we get only 1-3 shot Attempts on pps due to poor zone entries and lazy set-ups and lost possesion caused by the penalty killers against us and the puck is not even in thebo'zone long enough.

Thus the real impact of our lack 9f offense seems to me to be our forwards on the ES situations blowing high quality scoring chances by either
getting shot attempts blocked...or missing the net or by quality of their actual shot if it is on goal ...I do not know if tge quality of our shooting stinks beyond some league average ...but there is no way to measure that except by perception. .Gorin stance we know that when Toews gets a shot on goal ,it is usually not I te category of "greatcshot" as often as some snipers around the league we can say have great shots...Laine..Stamkos. .Kucherpv ..etc...Goalies have a lit of difficulty stopping theirv shots. .not so much many of our guys shots ..D-Cat being thecexception and Kane when he bis "on" not off in a funk.

As to opponents blocking the shot attempts by our forwards to a degree way beyond some league average ...I suposed it is possible ..in that case we would seem to have too slow releases as to why this hapoens IF that is the main cause of our fail to score enough bn ES or on the PP.

But usibgbtheveybalk test ...it seems to me our forwards are wasting quality chances by too often missing the net with theirv shots ..especially in the 4-5 feet out and closer range..Case in point:

....last night Toews misses the net on 2 unchecked situations about 3-4 feet from the crease off to tge right of the Buffalo net..2 glorious scoring chances wasted without even making the goalie work ..you cannot even expect to finish if you cannot hit the target !

So are we missing targets way beyond so normal league average of shots missed by forwards?

Observational it seems to me we do muss way too much than expected ..but someone needs to prove in fact if this is true. IF we are way over what we should miss at..then our coaches need to fix this bad habit in practices and expect our guys to get more accurate.

 

[JaegerDice]

And the LA Kings, with a new coach, are suddenly cashing in on the possession numbers they've been putting up forever... Strange how that works. Almost like shot volume isn't the end-all-be-all of hockey, and you need to find a system that generates quality scoring chances, and not just shots on goal from anywhere.

The Hawks have been awful the last 10 games, and Corsi says they are killing it... lol

I never said corsi is the be all end all of what a good team is. Advanced stats are only part of the answer, but I'd sure as hell rather be at the top of that list then near the bottom..

Two things here.

1) Corsi (possession) isn't the be all and end all, but it is very important and very predictive. It's not a 1:1 correlation for success, but it's the most repeatable, sustainable and consistent predictor of all the many variables that impact hockey. Though it is getting less predictive as more and more teams adopt philosophies and systems that emphasize possession, as the range in possession within the league is 'crushing' at both ends towards the 50% mark.

Moreover, the idea that the Blackhawks aren't generating chances is simply inaccurate. In the same time frame (last 10 games) they're 7th in the league in scoring chance share and 6th in the league as far as raw scoring chances generated. As far as strictly high-danger scoring chances (the slot), they drop a bit to 9th in share, and 8th in raw high-danger scoring chances generated (numbers from naturalstattrick.com).

xGF, which wraps attempts, shots, and chances together, weighted by aggregate shooting percentage per distance and angle the shot was taken (among other factors), puts the Blackhawks at 5th best in the league over that time (numbers from corsica.hockey).

In that time, they're 21st in the league in sh%.

The idea that the Blackhawks haven't been getting quality opportunities simply isn't true. They have been, they just haven't been burying them. By both quantity and quality, they've been playing well in the ozone, at least.

And then there's the bigger problem. The Blackhawks are winning the battle as far as possession and chance share, but they are still giving up a ton. They're a high-event team (tons of shots going both ways), and high event teams are rarely successful. History shows you can't win consistently simply by trying to out-generate what a ****ty defense allows on net. You need to suppress. And the Blackhawks can't. In the same 10 game time frame they are 24th in the league for shots allowed.

So yes, they're coming out on top in terms of shares and generating a ton, but they're doing it the wrong way, or at least, the less historically efficient and successful way. As far as success, you'd FAR prefer a team that generates less but allows even less against than a team that allows a ton again and generates even more themselves. Ideally, you'd be the 2013 Blackhawks, and generate a **** ton while giving your opponents almost nothing, but hey, not every team gets to be the best team of the last 10 years.

This is all 5v5 of course. We all know their PP is a tire-fire and is costing them games in a year where a higher number of PPs than average are being called per game.

This isn't going to assuage any frustrations, obviously. Nobody likes to hear 'hey, the sport you love is disproportionately impacted by random chance, and sometimes that chance bites you in the ass instead of helping over the hump'. (like it did last year for the Blackhawks). And obviously it doesn't magically erase the reality that they have 82 games to make the playoffs, they need more scoring and they're running out of runway. But it is what it is. That's hockey.


2) As far as the Kings are concerned, yes the new coaching staff updated the system that Sutter had in place. We know what the changes are, because they told the world the moment the coaching change was made. They've given their D the green-light to skate the puck out and join the rush more aggressively, and they've tried to create passes off the walls into the slot more often.

It would be ****ing great if the Blackhawks did the former, and they already to the latter a ton.

The Kings are scoring more because their top line is shooting the lights out. Nobody else on the team is really producing above the rates they were under Sutter. The vaunted coaching change has done basically nothing for lines 2-4, or any of their Dmen. All of them have roughly the same sh% as their career average and are roughly on pace for their normal production. Almost as if it's not a system impact at all, but rather some well-timed luck.

The boon has come particularly from Kopitar, who started the season shooting 25%, is currently at 20%, almost double his career average of 12.5%. If you believe that's entirely systems driven, that's fine, but I find it hard to believe that Kopitar has secretly actually been twice the finisher that Alexander Ovechkin is (career sh% of 12) or better than Steven Stamkos (career sh% 17) all this time, and Sutter (and Murray before him) just kept him quiet.... or that the benefits of the new system are exclusive to him while the rest of the team are unimpacted.

More likely, he's just insanely hot.

Likewise, Dustin Brown started at 20%, he's cooled down to 15%, that's still 6% better than his career average, he'll probably continue cooling as the season progresses... unless you think a more active D and more passes to the slot are the key to making Dustin Brown a better finisher than Patrick Kane has been at any point in his career (EDIT: Kane actually hit 16% sh% in the 2013 48-game season. My bad. So he was a better finisher once than Dustin Brown is currently.).

Can they keep it up? We shall see. But I wouldn't bet on teams riding a single line with a hot sh% and great goaltending. We all learned that first hand in 2016.

 

[JaegerDice]

This is an article well worth reading as far as the real issues with the Blackhawks right now, as well as the importance of Crawford.

Blackhawks' Central survival depends on fixing defensive decline — soon

And an image that sums it up pretty nice.

The higher red and orange, the better. The lower green and white, the better. You want big gaps between red over white and orange over green.

What was once a fantastic defensive team on top of being a shot generating juggernaut, is bleeding shots against like somebody with a gunshot wound to the throat. White and Green have shot up like rockets as the team has become a high event team. Bad luck as far as sh% is hurting them as far as actual goals scored, but as far as shot and chance generation they've been very good. The gap over their opposition has just been destroyed.

But the lack of finish, the mounting losses, obviously colors people's evaluation of their actual play in the Ozone. It's the Dzone that's killing them (and Crawford that's been keeping things from being even worse).

 

[Toews2Bickell]

That's a really interesting graph. Never would have thought Hawks current team have highest CF/60 in Toews, Kane era. But I'm not surprised they have the highest CA/60 in era. Same with delta between the two.

 

[TLEH]

That 2010 team was just a f***ing juggernaut.