Chicago Sports

MILWAUKEE — It hasn’t come about in the way the Blackhawks would have preferred, but top prospect Lukas Reichel now has an easier path to make their opening-night roster.

Entering the final week of the preseason — after the Hawks lost 3-0 to the Wild on Sunday at Fiserv Forum — the roster battle on the forward side now looks more interesting.

Boris Katchouk will miss the next four to six weeks because of a sprained left ankle, the team announced, opening up his spot to challengers until at least November. In addition, fellow depth forward Jujhar Khaira is day-to-day with an injury to his right ankle.

It’s an unlucky break for Katchouk, who was having one of his best games in a Hawks sweater Saturday — plowing through Red Wings like a wrecking ball on his way to the net every shift — before leaving in the third period.

”He was skating really well; he was doing a great job on the penalty kill,” coach Luke Richardson said. ”That sucks for him. Players work really hard in the summer to prepare for this, and [when] you don’t even get to start the season, it’s disappointing.”

If the Hawks want to replace Katchouk with a similar type of player, Reichel won’t be the guy. Josiah Slavin, who has looked like a budding penalty-kill specialist this preseason, would more likely benefit in that situation.

But if the Hawks want to replace Katchouk with the best player overall, Reichel is the obvious choice. His vision and agility with the puck on his stick — orchestrating blue-line entries with ease — would be extremely valuable for the offensively challenged Hawks, provided management is willing to throw him into the fire right away.

”There’s some flashes that [Lukas has] shown,” Richardson said. ”Obviously, he’s got the skill. I found a couple of clips for him defensively [where] he was in really good position. So now he’s just got to dig down and fight for that spot.

”He’s definitely skillful enough to play in this league. He just has to make sure he keeps pushing to deserve that opportunity.”

Quicker decisions

Preseason caveats aside, it’s concerning — albeit not particularly surprising — that the Hawks have scored only four non-empty-net goals in their first four exhibition games.

They fielded completely different rosters Saturday and Sunday, but both groups looked equally indecisive and ineffective in dangerous scoring areas. New signees Andreas Athanasiou and Max Domi have been two of the most frequent offenders in that regard. They continue to force lateral passes to Patrick Kane instead of shooting from the slot.

Captain Jonathan Toews, who played Saturday but not Sunday, broke down a few issues the Hawks are having.

”It comes down to guys talking more and knowing what their options are when they get the puck,” Toews said. ”We just tended to kind of stand still, wait one, two, three seconds, and then the play’s gone. You’re putting the next guy in a bad position and it’s a turnover, and then we spend a shift in our own zone.

”We’re just throwing [the puck] into an area to get rid of it and throw your teammate under the bus when he gets the puck. . . . [If] you support each other better, support the puck-carrier better and work harder to get to those open spots, then things are easier on the next player.”

Toews probably will spend much of the season frustrated. Most of his teammates simply aren’t upper-tier NHL players. But the Hawks would like to correct as many underlying problems as possible before camp ends.

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MILWAUKEE — It hasn’t come about in the way the Blackhawks would have preferred, but top prospect Lukas Reichel now has an easier path to make their opening-night roster.

Entering the final week of the preseason — after the Hawks lost 3-0 to the Wild on Sunday at Fiserv Forum — the roster battle on the forward side now looks more interesting.

Boris Katchouk will miss the next four to six weeks because of a sprained left ankle, the team announced, opening up his spot to challengers until at least November. In addition, fellow depth forward Jujhar Khaira is day-to-day with an injury to his right ankle.

It’s an unlucky break for Katchouk, who was having one of his best games in a Hawks sweater Saturday — plowing through Red Wings like a wrecking ball on his way to the net every shift — before leaving in the third period.

”He was skating really well; he was doing a great job on the penalty kill,” coach Luke Richardson said. ”That sucks for him. Players work really hard in the summer to prepare for this, and [when] you don’t even get to start the season, it’s disappointing.”

If the Hawks want to replace Katchouk with a similar type of player, Reichel won’t be the guy. Josiah Slavin, who has looked like a budding penalty-kill specialist this preseason, would more likely benefit in that situation.

But if the Hawks want to replace Katchouk with the best player overall, Reichel is the obvious choice. His vision and agility with the puck on his stick — orchestrating blue-line entries with ease — would be extremely valuable for the offensively challenged Hawks, provided management is willing to throw him into the fire right away.

”There’s some flashes that [Lukas has] shown,” Richardson said. ”Obviously, he’s got the skill. I found a couple of clips for him defensively [where] he was in really good position. So now he’s just got to dig down and fight for that spot.

”He’s definitely skillful enough to play in this league. He just has to make sure he keeps pushing to deserve that opportunity.”

Quicker decisions

Preseason caveats aside, it’s concerning — albeit not particularly surprising — that the Hawks have scored only four non-empty-net goals in their first four exhibition games.

They fielded completely different rosters Saturday and Sunday, but both groups looked equally indecisive and ineffective in dangerous scoring areas. New signees Andreas Athanasiou and Max Domi have been two of the most frequent offenders in that regard. They continue to force lateral passes to Patrick Kane instead of shooting from the slot.

Captain Jonathan Toews, who played Saturday but not Sunday, broke down a few issues the Hawks are having.

”It comes down to guys talking more and knowing what their options are when they get the puck,” Toews said. ”We just tended to kind of stand still, wait one, two, three seconds, and then the play’s gone. You’re putting the next guy in a bad position and it’s a turnover, and then we spend a shift in our own zone.

”We’re just throwing [the puck] into an area to get rid of it and throw your teammate under the bus when he gets the puck. . . . [If] you support each other better, support the puck-carrier better and work harder to get to those open spots, then things are easier on the next player.”

Toews probably will spend much of the season frustrated. Most of his teammates simply aren’t upper-tier NHL players. But the Hawks would like to correct as many underlying problems as possible before camp ends.

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A man was killed in a fire Sunday night in Burnside on the South Side.

About 7:30 p.m., firefighters responded to a call of a house that had caught fire in the 1100 block of East 90th Street, the Chicago Fire Department said. After arriving, firefighters entered the house to rescue a man who was trapped inside.

The man was pulled from the home and taken to Trinity Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, fire officials said.

The fire was put down by 8 p.m., fire officials said. The cause of the blaze wasn’t immediately known.

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A man was killed in a fire Sunday night in Burnside on the South Side.

About 7:30 p.m., firefighters responded to a call of a house that had caught fire in the 1100 block of East 90th Street, the Chicago Fire Department said. After arriving, firefighters entered the house to rescue a man who was trapped inside.

The man was pulled from the home and taken to Trinity Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, fire officials said.

The fire was put down by 8 p.m., fire officials said. The cause of the blaze wasn’t immediately known.

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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — One of the predominant concerns over the Bears’ hiring of Matt Eberflus as coach was whether someone with a lifelong specialization in defense could invigorate the maddeningly listless offense Matt Nagy left behind.

He hasn’t done it yet, and now he’s fending off increasingly sharp questions that he has never faced in 30 years as a defensive coach. He has a nonfunctioning passing attack — Is that the right word? — amid a confluence of poor pass protection, minimal wide receiver separation and rookie-like play from quarterback Justin Fields.

That’s a huge problem, and it tripped up the Bears again Sunday as they fell 20-12 to a Giants team that at one point literally did not have a quarterback. The Bears managed four field goals, punted after four or fewer plays on 6 of 10 possessions and are averaging 16 points per game.

Feels familiar.

Their defense isn’t perfect and still needs substantial personnel upgrades, but there’s no disputing Eberflus has that on the right track. It’s impossible to make that case on offense, though, especially in the passing game.

Well, technically not impossible, apparently.

“I do think that,” Eberflus said when asked if the offense is headed the right direction. “And I see positivity there in the passing game.”

Only with a microscope.

“We ran the ball relatively well, but I do see progression during practice and I saw progress today,” he continued. “That’s a defense that [brings] a lot of pressure, and we still got the ball down the field, which was a positive.”

Almost anything would’ve qualified as improvement after Fields’ career-worst 27.7 passer rating against the Texans, but there isn’t much optimism in him going 11 of 22 for 174 yards and a 76.7 passer rating. He had five completions longer than 15 yards, one of which being a screen to running back Khalil Herbert.

That’s a bright spot only with the lowest of low bars. Backup quarterbacks around the league could give the Bears that game. Mitch Trubisky could do it.

The Bears went into Sunday at the bottom of the NFL in everything passing related, and this game isn’t going to vault them out of the basement.

So why isn’t this working?

“Who said the passing game wasn’t working?” Fields responded.

Oh, everybody.

But mostly, the numbers are doing the talking.

“Numbers don’t matter,” he said. “As long as we win, that’s all I care about.”

They do matter, actually, because numbers typically translate to wins. The Bears got neither Sunday.

Fields is correct that passer ratings and completion percentages don’t decide games outright, but they lead to points — those tend to matter — and they’re indicators of an offense’s trajectory.

At the moment, the stats don’t lie. And truthfully, Fields sees that.

“The run game and the passing game has to be good for us to compete with the good teams,” he said.

Or pretty much any team.

The Bears barely got by the winless Texans, and nobody thinks of the Giants as a contender.

Eberflus has maintained that Fields isn’t exclusively to blame for the passing woes, saying it’s everyone’s fault. But if it really is everyone’s fault, that means it’s his and general manager Ryan Poles’ fault. They pick and develop the players.

The difference between Eberflus’ old job as coordinator and new one as coach is that now he must solve all the problems, not just the ones that fall into his expertise.

“I’ve split my time pretty much equally,” he said, adding that he doesn’t plan to adjust that. “I’m in the quarterback room a lot… I spend a lot of time with each position.”

Now is the time to get more involved with the offense and coordinator Luke Getsy. The Bears can’t say it’s early anymore, and they can’t live in denial about the passing game. And fixing the offense will factor heavily into whetherEberflus ultimately succeeds.

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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. –Three observations from the Bears’ 20-12 loss to the Giants on Sunday:

Trick play

Rather than heave a Hail Mary from their own 33, the Bears tried a trick play on the game’s final play. Justin Fields threw a 2-yard pass to running back Trestan Ebner, starting a series of laterals and fumbles that eventually ended when Giants safety Dane Belton recovered a fumble for a five-yard loss.

“You’ve just got to try to play the play longer than them on that one,” Fields said. “I know everybody was tired. I know I was tired, but those plays you’ve just got to hope for the best and keep the ball alive.”

Drop it?

Safety Eddie Jackson did his best Willie Mays impression to intercept Tyrod Taylor on the third play of the fourth quarter. Taylor’s heave served as a punt, though — the Giants went from snapping the ball at their own 35 to giving it to the Bears at their own 4.

Fields and Jackson talked about whether, theoretically, it might have been smarter to drop it.

“You can’t ask him to drop the pick,” he said. “It did put us in a backed-up situation, but he’s a ball hawk and you can’t tell that player to not make the play.”

No WRs

Darnell Mooney had his best game of the season, catching four balls for 94 yards. The rest of the Bears’ receiving corps totaled zero receptions. Dante Pettis had three targets, Equanimeous St. Brown two and Ihmir Smith-Marsette one.

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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — One of the predominant concerns over the Bears’ hiring of Matt Eberflus as coach was whether someone with a lifelong specialization in defense could invigorate the maddeningly listless offense Matt Nagy left behind.

He hasn’t done it yet, and now he’s fending off increasingly sharp questions that he has never faced in 30 years as a defensive coach. He has a nonfunctioning passing attack — Is that the right word? — amid a confluence of poor pass protection, minimal wide receiver separation and rookie-like play from quarterback Justin Fields.

That’s a huge problem, and it tripped up the Bears again Sunday as they fell 20-12 to a Giants team that at one point literally did not have a quarterback. The Bears managed four field goals, punted after four or fewer plays on 6 of 10 possessions and are averaging 16 points per game.

Feels familiar.

Their defense isn’t perfect and still needs substantial personnel upgrades, but there’s no disputing Eberflus has that on the right track. It’s impossible to make that case on offense, though, especially in the passing game.

Well, technically not impossible, apparently.

“I do think that,” Eberflus said when asked if the offense is headed the right direction. “And I see positivity there in the passing game.”

Only with a microscope.

“We ran the ball relatively well, but I do see progression during practice and I saw progress today,” he continued. “That’s a defense that [brings] a lot of pressure, and we still got the ball down the field, which was a positive.”

Almost anything would’ve qualified as improvement after Fields’ career-worst 27.7 passer rating against the Texans, but there isn’t much optimism in him going 11 of 22 for 174 yards and a 76.7 passer rating. He had five completions longer than 15 yards, one of which being a screen to running back Khalil Herbert.

That’s a bright spot only with the lowest of low bars. Backup quarterbacks around the league could give the Bears that game. Mitch Trubisky could do it.

The Bears went into Sunday at the bottom of the NFL in everything passing related, and this game isn’t going to vault them out of the basement.

So why isn’t this working?

“Who said the passing game wasn’t working?” Fields responded.

Oh, everybody.

But mostly, the numbers are doing the talking.

“Numbers don’t matter,” he said. “As long as we win, that’s all I care about.”

They do matter, actually, because numbers typically translate to wins. The Bears got neither Sunday.

Fields is correct that passer ratings and completion percentages don’t decide games outright, but they lead to points — those tend to matter — and they’re indicators of an offense’s trajectory.

At the moment, the stats don’t lie. And truthfully, Fields sees that.

“The run game and the passing game has to be good for us to compete with the good teams,” he said.

Or pretty much any team.

The Bears barely got by the winless Texans, and nobody thinks of the Giants as a contender.

Eberflus has maintained that Fields isn’t exclusively to blame for the passing woes, saying it’s everyone’s fault. But if it really is everyone’s fault, that means it’s his and general manager Ryan Poles’ fault. They pick and develop the players.

The difference between Eberflus’ old job as coordinator and new one as coach is that now he must solve all the problems, not just the ones that fall into his expertise.

“I’ve split my time pretty much equally,” he said, adding that he doesn’t plan to adjust that. “I’m in the quarterback room a lot… I spend a lot of time with each position.”

Now is the time to get more involved with the offense and coordinator Luke Getsy. The Bears can’t say it’s early anymore, and they can’t live in denial about the passing game. And fixing the offense will factor heavily into whetherEberflus ultimately succeeds.

Read More

Wisconsin fired head coach Paul Chryst on Sunday after a 2-3 start to his eighth season leading the school where he played in the city where he grew up.

The surprising move comes a day after Wisconsin lost at home 34-10 to Illinois and former Badgers coach Bret Bielema.

Chryst is 67-26 since taking over as coach of the Badgers in 2015. But the program has been backsliding. Chryst had double-digit win seasons in four of his first five years at Wisconsin and had gone 15-10 since.

Chryst, the 56-year-old Madison native, has four years left on his contract. He was set to make $5.25 million this season.

Defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard, another former Badgers player, was named interim coach. The 39-year-old former NFL defensive back has been part of Chryst’s staff for seven seasons.

The in-season coaching move was the fifth already this season, and second of the day. Earlier Sunday, Colorado dismissed Karl Dorrell.

But none of the changes have been as unexpected as Wisconsin’s.

The program has been built on stability for more than three decades since Barry Alvarez turned it around in the 1990s.

Chryst, who played quarterback for the Badgers in the late 1980s, was an assistant under Alvarez and Bielema.

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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. –Three observations from the Bears’ 20-12 loss to the Giants on Sunday:

Trick play

Rather than heave a Hail Mary from their own 33, the Bears tried a trick play on the game’s final play. Justin Fields threw a 2-yard pass to running back Trestan Ebner, starting a series of laterals and fumbles that eventually ended when Giants safety Dane Belton recovered a fumble for a five-yard loss.

“You’ve just got to try to play the play longer than them on that one,” Fields said. “I know everybody was tired. I know I was tired, but those plays you’ve just got to hope for the best and keep the ball alive.”

Drop it?

Safety Eddie Jackson did his best Willie Mays impression to intercept Tyrod Taylor on the third play of the fourth quarter. Taylor’s heave served as a punt, though — the Giants went from snapping the ball at their own 35 to giving it to the Bears at their own 4.

Fields and Jackson talked about whether, theoretically, it might have been smarter to drop it.

“You can’t ask him to drop the pick,” he said. “It did put us in a backed-up situation, but he’s a ball hawk and you can’t tell that player to not make the play.”

No WRs

Darnell Mooney had his best game of the season, catching four balls for 94 yards. The rest of the Bears’ receiving corps totaled zero receptions. Dante Pettis had three targets, Equanimeous St. Brown two and Ihmir Smith-Marsette one.

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Bears rookie Velus Jones could barely stand the wait for his NFL debut. When he finally made it, he was miserable.

Jones cost the Bears their last realistic chance against the Giants by coughing up the ball on a punt return with two minutes left in their 20-12 loss at MetLife Stadium. A good return would’ve given them a shot at forcing overtime, but the ball went right through Jones’ hands.

He tried to fall on it as it bounded away, but when cornerback Lamar Jackson’s leg hit him and the ball ricocheted until Giants running back Gary Brightwell recovered it.

“I’m definitely gonna let this one sit and hurt,” Jones said. “It’s gonna motivate me next time I’m out there. I know the type of returner I am.”

Jones was an excellent punt returner in college, and the Bears drafted him in the third round at No. 71 overall for that talent and to be a threat at wide receiver. He returned two kickoffs against the Giants for 22 yards apiece and had a 19-yard punt return.

His muffed punt wrecked what coach Matt Eberflus thought was a perfect plan.

He saved time by using two timeouts while forcing the Giants into a three-and-out and imagined a scenario where Jones got the Bears to midfield with one timeout available.

“That was sweet,” Eberflus said of everything until Jones lost the punt. “The punterout-kickedthe coverage a little bit, and we had Velus Jones back there. We had great blocking. There was a wide space for us.”

Jones missed some of the preseason and the first three games with a hamstring injury. In his first preseason game, he fumbled the opening kickoff but bounced back with a 48-yard punt return.

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