Yo Cubs fans, watching HOU at BLT and Neris is dressed and in the HOU bullpen.
- Mr Ricochet

So glad he is gone

Still driving but wanted to check in.

Steve f Glencoe, glad to see you read all the past posts and saw the oine I directed to you, ha!

Rick O'Shay:
I threw up some profiles before I left so Lou Angotti COULD know the prospects. I will cut and paste more upon my return.


I did watch the vids and Schaefer sure is a top defenseman, good on both sides of the puck and dominant and the best defender in the tourney, better than any other teams and therein caused teams issues.
https://www.lines.com/nhl/drafts/2025

I still like Hensler the top RD b/c he is good playing defense.

I love me P Martone and Mal Spence and the Raven top goalie too. and gritty Dominik Pavlik..Can we get two out of three? Or are we trading TWO picks for one (Martone)?

I don't doubt Bedsy bulked up, but did he grow an inch????

Oh, and blue blood might be denoting McG as a former USANDTeam member, where they must do classroom too, because all just seem to be hockey smart out there...

Still driving but wanted to check in.

Steve f Glencoe, glad to see you read all the past posts and saw the oine I directed to you, ha!

Rick O'Shay:
I threw up some profiles before I left so Lou Angotti COULD know the prospects. I will cut and paste more upon my return.


I did watch the vids and Schaefer sure is a top defenseman, good on both sides of the puck and dominant and the best defender in the tourney, better than any other teams and therein caused teams issues.
https://www.lines.com/nhl/drafts/2025

I still like Hensler the top RD b/c he is good playing defense.

I love me P Martone and Mal Spence and the Raven top goalie too. and gritty Dominik Pavlik..Can we get two out of three? Or are we trading TWO picks for one (Martone)?

I don't doubt Bedsy bulked up, but did he grow an inch????

Oh, and blue blood might be denoting McG as a former USANDTeam member, where must do classroom too, because all just seem to be hockey smart out there...
- wiz1901

What´s that?

What does this mean?
- Chunk

He's a cop in New York on Friday nights.

San Jose signs Askarov to a 2 year x 2M contract extension, effective next season.

With the Vegas 1st round pick acquired in the trade, NSH now has three 2025 1st rounders, their own, TB's and VGK's. All of them likely will be in the late teens or 20's. I can see them being buyers at the deadline. If Hall is healthy and having a good year can he be had for one of those 1sts?
- boilermaker100

If Hall is playing at a level that he's worth a first - the Hawks are in or very near a playoff spot and pushing to get in.

If Hall is playing at a level that he's worth a first - the Hawks are in or very near a playoff spot and pushing to get in.
- fattybeef

Not if we are giving up 275+ goals this season.

Not if we are giving up 275+ goals this season.
- BetweenTheDots

No Tinordi, Zaitsev, Meygna, add Martinez and Brodie, and Broissart instead of Soderblom, I don’t see Hawks giving up more than 250.

Also take into consideration the Hawks should have the puck more on offense.

Not if we are giving up 275+ goals this season.
- BetweenTheDots

As always, it depends. DET lost a PO spot last year on a tie-breaker giving up 274.

They gave up 290 last year (and only scored 179). They now have an NHL backup goalie and will ice a backend with likely not a single player without a full season of experience. Add to that the bottom two lines won’t have any AHL players as long as they aren’t decimated with injuries and they should be much improved defensively. If they aren’t, I think you have to start looking at what LR is doing.

As always, it depends. DET lost a PO spot last year on a tie-breaker giving up 274.

They gave up 290 last year (and only scored 179). They now have an NHL backup goalie and will ice a backend with likely not a single player without a full season of experience. Add to that the bottom two lines won’t have any AHL players as long as they aren’t decimated with injuries and they should be much improved defensively. If they aren’t, I think you have to start looking at what LR is doing.
- Chunk

I surely don't expect them to score a 100 more goals this year. If they do then they will be a playoff contender for sure, Calgary scored 250 and were only an 80 point team, 25 less than Detroit, and gave up about the same amount of goals.

No Tinordi, Zaitsev, Meygna, add Martinez and Brodie, and Broissart instead of Soderblom, I don’t see Hawks giving up more than 250.

Also take into consideration the Hawks should have the puck more on offense.
- LAHawk

I took a mathematical approach to guessing the goals against, which I made some assumptions.

1) Mrazek and Brossoit play near their career average sv% - This would average out to about 0.909 sv% for the team.
2) The Hawks improved roster and slightly better D take the shots against down from 32.7 against per game to a bit better 31.0.
3) The Hawks give up a bit fewer Empty Net goals, maybe only 13 against. (we gave up 15 last year, the worst was NJD with 27 and Dallas was the best with 7 against, most teams were 10-19)
4) Assume maybe 55% to 45% game playing split between Mrazek and Brossoit, just based on experience.

Based on that we'd be around 267 against, 254 given up by the goalies, and the 13 empty netters assumed above.

If Brossoit can somehow maintain the performance level he had in the last two seasons (unlikely) and he gets the lion's share of the starts, maybe they can bring that down to like 234 goals against, but that's probably a bit too optimistic IMO.

In short, to hit 250 against we'd need the goalies to continue to play better than their career averages or we'd need to get the shots against down to about 29 per game (basically that would put us in the upper 3rd of the league for team defense).

I'm gonna just guess we land somewhere around 265. Of course, they play the games for a reason and we don't know what will happen, but that's my guess.

Just for fun (this could end up wildly inaccurate) I took the Hawks "likely" roster players next season, estimated approximately how many games I think each will play, estimated their goals per game based on recent seasons, age and situation and tried to calculate how many goals I think they will score on average. The total ended up at 229, but these are my results. My biased predictions would give them about a -36 goal differential and probably lands them about 5-8th from the bottom of the NHL.

Bedard 34
Teravainen 20
Hall 19
Bertuzzi 19
Richardinson 16
Mikheyev 15
Kurashev 13
Reichel 11
Donato 10
Foligno 8
Smith 7
Anderson 7
Athanasiou 6
Maroon 3
Nazar 3
Slaggert 2
Sanford 1
Guttman 1
Jones 8
Korchinski 6
Martinez 5
Vlasic 4
Murphy 4
Brodie 3
Kaiser 2
Phillips 1
Del Mastro 1

Just for fun (this could end up wildly inaccurate) I took the Hawks "likely" roster players next season, estimated approximately how many games I think each will play, estimated their goals per game based on recent seasons, age and situation and tried to calculate how many goals I think they will score on average. The total ended up at 229, but these are my results. My biased predictions would give them about a -36 goal differential and probably lands them about 5-8th from the bottom of the NHL.

Bedard 34
Teravainen 20
Hall 19
Bertuzzi 19
Richardinson 16
Mikheyev 15
Kurashev 13
Reichel 11
Donato 10
Foligno 8
Smith 7
Anderson 7
Athanasiou 6
Maroon 3
Nazar 3
Slaggert 2
Sanford 1
Guttman 1
Jones 8
Korchinski 6
Martinez 5
Vlasic 4
Murphy 4
Brodie 3
Kaiser 2
Phillips 1
Del Mastro 1
- breadbag

Fun exercise. As you mentioned, it's very premature and there are so many unknowns. You're AA projection was interesting. Is it that low because you don't he'll play that many games with the Hawks, or because you think that's just what he is now?

Personally, I think our D-men production is going to be much better this year. I think Jones gets back to double digits this season, and I think Vlasic is going to put a few more on the board too. He was so frustrated that he couldn't bury any of his breakaways last year, I'm thinking he's working on an improved shot.

New blog.