Nothing today.
- John Jaeckel

Well what do we do now? WAIT! Did someone mention Game of Thrones!

My whole thing is...when do they start promoting from within and rotating in some of the guys from the Rock?
- Hank3Henshaw

They had a bunch of guys for the Rock play last year. 5-7 of them at a time at points. The problem (and I believe more to your point) is that these kids were sort of forced into it. I'm a big proponent that familiarity breeds confidence. I would love to see more uniformity between Rock/Chi systems and slowly bring in 1-2 guys per year that fill a need. Otherwise you end up overpaying for Ladd/Fleisch/Weise. You also end up keeping your costs comparably lower.

Except that his possession numbers are not good. Actually, they were pretty terrible last year. We can argue this contract for the next 3 years if we want. I have made my thoughts known on the deal as far as Cap Hit for a non-scoring bottom 6 Center on THIS team. A stagnant salary cap, the 2 highest paid players in the league, and the priciest 6 player Core in the NHL makes this a contract that the Hawks cannot afford, IMO. Also, rumors were saying that Salary would have be retained when Stan was shopping Kruger at the draft, so not only can the Hawks not afford to pay Marcus Kruger $3.1 mil/year, but nobody else wants to either.

His shot suppression, shot generation, and overall possession numbers are terrible from last season. Compared to Trevor Lewis who has better possession stats across the board, produced more offense, and makes $1mil less (on a team that is against the Cap but not as bad as the Hawks). Here is the 15/16 HERO chart comparison....

Kruger v Lewis


- EnzoD

First, looking at a single smaller sample size season that was riddled with inconsistent linemates and d-pairings is not a good basis for an argument. Look at their years in 2013 and 2014 when their zone starts and such were more comparable (though Kruger has always faced higher QOC) and you'll see they're pretty comparable. Btw, Kruger's CF% had always been around 52% before last year.

Second, please notice that I said 'possession gain' and not direct possession numbers. While I believe his overall possession number to be fine (break even is fine for his role), it's the gain part that is impressive. Kruger has had some of the best possession gain in the league.

And last, I never said that Kruger's contract was a good fit for the Hawks - I just simply said that looking at his overall underlying numbers and recent comparables, he is not really overpaid (give or take a little allotted to him for taking the cheap one year deal before). It's possible that last year's lows will be the new norm for him, but there's no real evidence of that yet, especially since he did see any real dip in his individual numbers and then saw a jump in possession in the playoffs to about 52.5% CF (though obvs a really small sample size for that).

WTC10,
You just had me rolling on the floor. Thanks for the great post!

- savvyone-1

Call it like I see it with alittle humor, I know I anger some, but WTF, I've had season tix since 72, I been thru all the era's since then regarding BlackHawk hockey! As I shred up Stan, something tells me he's comin out of nowhere with some news by Friday!

What would the Oilers do with the other 875 forwards they have?
- L_B_R

Trade 1to the Hawks for Brent Seabrooke. Get rid of that dumb ass contract.

They had a bunch of guys for the Rock play last year. 5-7 of them at a time at points. The problem (and I believe more to your point) is that these kids were sort of forced into it. I'm a big proponent that familiarity breeds confidence. I would love to see more uniformity between Rock/Chi systems and slowly bring in 1-2 guys per year that fill a need. Otherwise you end up overpaying for Ladd/Fleisch/Weise. You also end up keeping your costs comparably lower.
- Chunk

I think the other thing is that a lot of these call ups are sporadic. Guys come in and are given a game here and there. It's hard to catch a groove. If they don't have an outstanding game, it's back to the minors. I mean, I get it, but I also think guys need long looks. Hinsatroza had a good look last year. I'd like to see a guy like Hartman get a number of games in a row. You know what I mean?

@FrankProSports tweeted (tweet and article at link)
The loonie, Brexit & the rise of the Oilers & Sabres. Why the #NHL salary cap isn't likely to rise anytime soon
https://twitter.com/frank...status/747884840201109504

Just throwing this out there because I think that whether or not the article is good, the premise (no meaningful cap increase next year either) is something that I think, together with the expansion draft next year, is influencing decisions made this year.

I think the other thing is that a lot of these call ups are sporadic. Guys come in and are given a game here and there. It's hard to catch a groove. If they don't have an outstanding game, it's back to the minors. I mean, I get it, but I also think guys need long looks. Hinsatroza had a good look last year. I'd like to see a guy like Hartman get a number of games in a row. You know what I mean?
- Hank3Henshaw

Absolutely. It would definitely help with their long term view (although I fully realize they are playing for now). Hino wasnt bad. I liked Kero's game and I honk both Hartman will bring it in camp and get a longer leash. Call me crazy, but I see McNeill putting on the big boy pants and sticking from the outset. I really liked what I saw from him at the Rock (albeit 5 games total).

I'm gonna disagree here.

And as long as LBR is around, I can think of no one better to ask:

Is there a solid metric out there for offensive zone possession time/TOI?

This whole Kruger can't score narrative is a bit overblown and misses a couple of important points. I doubt strongly Kruger will ever score more than 40 points in a season. But he had 26 (9/17) in his first full season in North America (with the Hawks) in 2012.

So Kruger can score. He can pass the puck pretty damn well actually, and he scored a helluva goal in the 2013 SCF.

I think the deal with Kruger the last couple of years is the job he's been asked to do, the number of d-zone starts.

His line in 2015 was HUGE—especially vis a vis EXTENDED O-ZONE POSSESSION. That was with Desi and Shaw, not exactly big time finishers, and let's face it, really all they were trying to do was pin opponents in their end,not necessarily create chances.

I think if you got Kruger with say Hossa and another 2-way winger and he might be pretty productive as a third line C.
- John Jaeckel

I posted a before I saw this so I covered some in my other comment.

As for your first question, there isn't a stat site that covers the OZ/TOI metric, but several people track it. At the Hockey Analytics Conference in DC last year (so covering the 2014-15 season), someone had an entire presentation on timed vs shot metric possesion. For the Hawks, it was mentioned that Kruger was top 4 behind Kane, Toews, and Hossa for timed possession in the OZ (Saad was 5). Considering that Kruger started about 60% of the time in the DZ and about 16% in the OZ that year, that's impressive. Time possession is not as useful as shot metric possession to predict offense, but it's a good tool for evaluating defense - team without the puck can't score, after all. His shot metric possession was 52.34% CF / 52.31 FF% that year, btw, which has been close to his norm (in 2013, he was topping 55%).

I'll also point out that the Hawks have consistently had one of the highest OZS% in the league for a while, partially because the lower lines force a goalie stoppage of play and allow the Hawks to put out their more offensive lines. Kruger to Kane line change is the most common switch for the Hawks for years now.

Part of the issue with Kruger is that he can score (not a lot imo but ~alright), but the players with him lately have 1) lower sh% 2) don't take as many shots or 3) have low primary pass or assist rates. His most productive year was when paired with a player that was good in those category (Frolik). All of this suggests that Kruger is a possession driver, and while that alone does not directly correlate into points production, he typically has a positive impact on other players on his line.

The fact that Kruger had middling possession last year is not great, but he also only played half a season during a time when the entire teams' possession was low outside of the Kane line. Kruger has historically been one of the best at his job and I'd wager he'll continue that next season.

Talking on NHL channel, ......both Ladd & Brouwer could wind up back in Vancouver if Lucic goes to the Oil........ & Stan Bowman in the mix for Morin, Smith and all his other busts that weren't Qualified. Telling Toews. " pick 1!"

Absolutely. It would definitely help with their long term view (although I fully realize they are playing for now). Hino wasnt bad. I liked Kero's game and I honk both Hartman will bring it in camp and get a longer leash. Call me crazy, but I see McNeill putting on the big boy pants and sticking from the outset. I really liked what I saw from him at the Rock (albeit 5 games total).
- Chunk

Hinostroza is a bust, Kero is a bust, Baun is a bust, .....could see both McNeill & Hartman making it.

And last, I never said that Kruger's contract was a good fit for the Hawks - I just simply said that looking at his overall underlying numbers and recent comparables, he is not really overpaid (give or take a little allotted to him for taking the cheap one year deal before).
- L_B_R

I am not diminishing the fact that Kruger has been an effective shut-down 4C so far in his career. I have maintained that his $3.1 mil would have been better used to fill the hole at 2LW or 4D. I strongly believe that Stan could've found a similar player to Kruger for about half of what Kruger now makes. Kruger has been key to the Hawks success since he joined the team, but for what he provides, his cap hit, and the Hawks other salary commitments, I think Bowman already has buyers remorse (widely reported that he was/is being shopped). TWT and I hope Kruger makes me eat my words, but I'm not holding my breath.

I'm gonna disagree here.

And as long as LBR is around, I can think of no one better to ask:

Is there a solid metric out there for offensive zone possession time/TOI?

This whole Kruger can't score narrative is a bit overblown and misses a couple of important points. I doubt strongly Kruger will ever score more than 40 points in a season. But he had 26 (9/17) in his first full season in North America (with the Hawks) in 2012.

So Kruger can score. He can pass the puck pretty damn well actually, and he scored a helluva goal in the 2013 SCF.

I think the deal with Kruger the last couple of years is the job he's been asked to do, the number of d-zone starts.

His line in 2015 was HUGE—especially vis a vis EXTENDED O-ZONE POSSESSION. That was with Desi and Shaw, not exactly big time finishers, and let's face it, really all they were trying to do was pin opponents in their end,not necessarily create chances.

I think if you got Kruger with say Hossa and another 2-way winger and he might be pretty productive as a third line C.
- John Jaeckel

Kruger needs to score more. Agreed. BUT he plays 15 minutes. 2 1/2 minutes are on the PK. Never on the power play. 81% of draws are in the defensive zone. He often draws the opponents #1 line (or at worst 2nd line). He is playing with career low scoring wingers. How many points would Toews and Anisimov score in the same situation? Sure more than Kruger. But how much more? $7 mil more? $1.5mil more?

Hinostroza is a bust, Kero is a bust, Baun is a bust, .....could see both McNeill & Hartman making it.
- wonthecup10

Kero and Baun were undrafted Free Agents so no real loss there. Sometimes those undrafted FA's are gold (Panarin, TVR) and sometimes they aren't. I hope Stan keeps playing the NCAA, Euro UFA market and can strike gold again

Only one of the Oilers players was ever called a generational talent, and McDavid is exactly that.

I think the Oilers have done just fine drafting early in drafts. Where they failed was their inability to draft beyond the first round. They didn't have any decent depth players until just recently. They had no goaltending until Talbot signed. Their defensive depth has been a joke for a long time.


Taylor Hall(1st overall, 2010) is the 2nd best player from the 2010 draft. Seguin has been slightly more productive, and he was taken 2nd overall.

RNH(1st overall, 2011) is only less productive than one player from that draft. Landeskog, who was taken 2nd overall.

Yakupov(1st overall, 2012) is garbage. Bad pick.

Nurse(7th overall, 2013) Spent time developing his game and looks close to ready for a top 4 role. Solid pick.

Draisatl(3rd overall, 2014) Absolutely awesome pick. There's only one player better than Draisatl out of the 2014 draft, and that's Aaron Ekblad. He's going to be a great 2nd line center for a long time.

2015 was McDavid. That's the easiest pick they've ever made. This year Puljujarvi was another easy pick in the 1st round.

The Oilers have the right men in charge now to get the team contending, and I'd give it a maximum of two years before they're back in the playoffs.
- Hawks_49

Just in time for them to have to blow the team up because the salary cap will prevent them for paying all their young talent ....

Hinostroza is a bust, Kero is a bust, Baun is a bust, .....could see both McNeill & Hartman making it.
- wonthecup10

I think it's too early to say busts just look at how many games they've played in the NHL.

Hinostroza- 7
Kero- 17
Baun- 5

That's not enough games in my opinion to put them as busts.

That guy...baring injury could go for 4 more years... He still has great wheels... Better now than rossy ever had.. If he stays healthy he can play as long as he wants
- southernhawk

You know I agree with this. Campbell looked as he always has when I saw the Panthers last year, although it was only 5-6-7 times and not always the whole game.

His style where he's efficient, his build, doesn't play physical and doesn't take too many big hits it seems he can go for a few more years if he chose to. Add if he's slotted to take #4 or #5 minutes that's even less wear and tear.

Good point, Hawk.

Hinostroza is a bust, Kero is a bust, Baun is a bust, .....could see both McNeill & Hartman making it.
- wonthecup10

So no chance at all of any of them improving their game and making some sort of difference?

What did McNeill and Hartman show that Kero and Baun didn't? Serious question since I only saw 5 games in person. Hino is a different type of player (who I think has played better than average in his time up and pretty well at the hockey championship).

How would people here feel if the trade was :

Taylor Hall for Brent Seabrook and a 3rd rounder next year ?

Blackhawks solve their top 6 and save $800,000 .
Id say the Hawks have to include a pick because Hall is a former 1-1 and younger than Seabrook.

Hawks use the extra 800k and remaining cap to add a serviceable d man .


Which side says No to this deal ?


I dont think the Oilers would be able to beat Seabrook for Hall

Over 22 ATOI actually, ranked in the mid 60's overall for D (7 was about 120). I would not underestimate the impact he can have - he can play top 4 for sure. As Pitt demonstrated speed of exit hides a lot of warts defensively
- Sundevil

Indeed..........

I am not diminishing the fact that Kruger has been an effective shut-down 4C so far in his career. I have maintained that his $3.1 mil would have been better used to fill the hole at 2LW or 4D. I strongly believe that Stan could've found a similar player to Kruger for about half of what Kruger now makes. Kruger has been key to the Hawks success since he joined the team, but for what he provides, his cap hit, and the Hawks other salary commitments, I think Bowman already has buyers remorse (widely reported that he was/is being shipped). TWT and I hope Kruger makes me eat my words, but I'm not holding my breath.
- EnzoD

Good, we agree that he has been effective as a shutdown center. So what we disagree on partially is his contract. Personally, I was never arguing that the contract was good for the Hawks, just that the statement that he's 'overpaid' for his value is not exactly accurate. Those are different things, imo. It's more accurate to say that a shutdown center of his quality is a luxury a team like the Hawks cannot currently afford.

And this may be a semantics argument, but I maintain that Bowman would not have found as good as good a player as Kruger at his role for half off - though he maybe could have found someone half as good for half the amount, which maybe would have been compensated by the increase in a better top 6 / d-core. There are a lot of maybes in that situation, though. I think that's a perfectly reasonable argument. The fact is that there are not really any guys in the league that get the same deployment as Kruger with historically similar results, and those close to it are not making half his amount (Lewis is making $1m less, as we've already noted), kind of reinforces this point.

The only guy that maybe they could have gotten for half Kruger's hit that would have been closer to be on par and not stupidly old was Riley Nash from the Canes (and that's mostly because he's been on the Canes). He doesn't get the same zone deployment, face as high QOC or PK as much - but his passing numbers are really solid, a little bit more finish, and shot suppression is good.

I posted a before I saw this so I covered some in my other comment.

As for your first question, there isn't a stat site that covers the OZ/TOI metric, but several people track it. At the Hockey Analytics Conference in DC last year (so covering the 2014-15 season), someone had an entire presentation on timed vs shot metric possesion. For the Hawks, it was mentioned that Kruger was top 5 behind Kane, Toews, and Hossa for timed possession in the OZ (Saad was 6). Considering that Kruger started about 60% of the time in the DZ and about 16% in the OZ that year, that's impressive. Time possession is not as useful as shot metric possession to predict offense, but it's a good tool for evaluating defense - team without the puck can't score, after all. His shot metric possession was 52.34% CF / 52.31 FF% that year, btw, which has been close to his norm (in 2013, he was topping 55%).

I'll also point out that the Hawks have consistently had one of the highest OZS% in the league for a while, partially because the lower lines force a goalie stoppage of play and allow the Hawks to put out their more offensive lines. Kruger to Kane line change is the most common switch for the Hawks for years now.

Part of the issue with Kruger is that he can score (not a lot imo but ~alright), but the players with him lately have 1) lower sh% 2) don't take as many shots or 3) have low primary pass or assist rates. His most productive year was when paired with a player that was good in those category (Frolik). All of this suggests that Kruger is a possession driver, and while that alone does not directly correlate into points production, he typically has a positive impact on other players on his line.

The fact that Kruger had middling possession last year is not great, but he also only played half a season during a time when the entire teams' possession was low outside of the Kane line. Kruger has historically been one of the best at his job and I'd wager he'll continue that next season.
- L_B_R

The bolded is what I'm getting at. If you looked at his o-zone possession time (which that stat sort of gets at), PLUS, the % of d-zone draws, agreed, very impressive. You then get a sense of real value, primarily defensively, but also setting up o-zone line changes and draws after stoppages.

Thank you.

Everyone but Kruger with a big contract will have a NMC by Friday with 4+ years remaining.
- L_B_R

Something to keep an eye on if StanBow doesn't want to play chicken with Panarin at seasons end.

Well what do we do now? WAIT! Did someone mention Game of Thrones!


- gifman

poop gets real when we start talking Vikings.

How would people here feel if the trade was :

Taylor Hall for Brent Seabrook and a 3rd rounder next year ?

Blackhawks solve their top 6 and save $800,000 .
Id say the Hawks have to include a pick because Hall is a former 1-1 and younger than Seabrook.

Hawks use the extra 800k and remaining cap to add a serviceable d man .


Which side says No to this deal ?


I dont think the Oilers would be able to beat Seabrook for Hall
- mrpaulish

Down like a clown Charlie Brown. I wonder who has more trade value, Crawford or Seabs