The Chicago Blackhawks are doing something that is getting pretty common around the windy city. Celebrating a Stanley Cup victory. Seemingly every two or three seasons the Blackhawks make a run that ends with raising the Cup in June and pretty much every season they are a threat to do so.
Chicago has been forced to do something else they are a little familiar with after winning a Stanley Cup, changing the team in some big ways. Back in 2010 when the Blackhawks won their first Cup in forty-nine years the team was forced to trade and let go of key players. Salary cap reasons was the main reason and to this day you can use the nickname “Hangover Hawks” for the 2010-11 Chicago Blackhawks.
Trading Dustin Byfuglien, Andrew Ladd, Kris Versteeg, Brent Sopel, Ben Eager, and losing Antti Niemi, John Madden and Adam Burish to free agency. Some of those players were more important than others in the Cup win but all a part of the team nonetheless and spots to be filled.
It wasn’t all bad, The Hawks acquired players like Michael Frolik, Viktor Stalberg, and had high hoped for goalie Marty Turco. On top pf those signings they did resign and sign some important players for their future two Cup wins, like Brent Seabrook, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Nick Leddy, Bryan Bickell and even Marcus Kruger. Looking at the roster that year, it still looked very threatening, Toews, Kane, Hossa, Sharp, Keith, Seabrook, and plenty of others.
The Blackhawks would never be a great team that year and were forced to qualify for the playoffs on the last day of the season, losing that day and hoping that the Dallas Stars would also lose so they would make the playoffs. The Stars did lose and the Hawks ended up in the playoffs and matched up against the Presidents trophy winning Vancouver Canucks.
Going down 0-3 in the first round, the Blackhawks demons the Canucks had to that point returned and Chicago forced a game seven, a game that required overtime. Alex Burrows won that game for Vancouver as they moved on to round two ending the Blackhawks season.
To save both you and me sometime, the Blackhawks would return to the top in the following seasons, winning two Stanley Cups in 2013 and 2015. 2013 was different than the other two years as the majority of the team was able to stay together and keep the team at the top of the league.
2015 could be a lot like 2010, there has been a lot of turnover in Chicago with plenty of key players leaving. Patrick Sharp, scoring almost 250 goals in his NHL career, most of them with Chicago, Brandon Saad, one of the best and still most promising young players in the entire league, and losing Brad Richards, Antoine Vermette and Johnny Oduya. Again, some players I’ve mentioned are more important that others, but having to tear a cup winning team apart is going to hurt.
The Blackhawks have added some good pieces too and good young players like Artemi Panarin, Viktor Tikhonov, both from the KHL having success there, and got Artem Anisimov, Marko Dano, Jeremy Morin, Ryan Haggerty and Trevor Daley in seperate trades. The headline players would be Panarin, Tikhonov and Dano, those players seem to have the fans most excited. It’s good to get young good players for sure and the young Russians are definitely a good add.
In my opinion though, this Blackhawks team has been a little mismanaged in terms of the salary cap. I know I’m in the minority, but the $10.5 cap hit for Kane and Toews both is too much. Blackhawks fan can disagree with me all you want, yes they would have gotten more in free agency, sure they maybe took less in that sense, but $10.5 is not a discount. I don’t care what the “projected” salary cap was going to be, I don’t care that the Canadian dollar made the cap not go as high as expected, they paid Toews and Kane too much. Now Kane has more off ice issues which I’m sure will get resolved but Kane has had issues in the past and he needs to grow up to make his contract look better.
Other high cap hits are Hossa, not bad for his type of player and his production is $5.275 but that is for six more seasons and Hossa is already thirty-six years old. You have Bickell at a $4 million cap hit, I think we can all agree that’s one of the worst contracts in the league, Then you have Anisimov who will be a $4.55 cap hit after next season, high for what he brings.
High contracts have forced players like Sharp and Saad out, key players in those Cup runs and you still have to sign Brent Seabrook when his contract expires after next season.I’m not saying it’s easy to manage a team, if it was I would be doing it, but there are contracts that are too high, too long and some downright confusing. The Blackhawks have done a good job at bringing in some young players, but those young players are unknowns , those players have to replace Sharp and Saad and that’s a huge question if they can do that.
If the young players can’t come in and produce right away, the Blackhawks could be in trouble especially in a tough division. Chicago has to deal with at least five teams in their own division who could give them some trouble, St. Louis, Nashville, Colorado, Minnesota and Dallas could all make the playoffs in the central. If the Blackhawks can’t make the playoffs in their division then they have to deal with the Pacific division, The Ducks will still be great, I think San Jose and LA will have bounce back seasons and Calgary will still be a tough team and who knows if Edmonton can take that next step and at least make the playoff race tighter.
The Blackhawks will make the playoffs, Toews, Kane, Hossa, Keith and Seabrook as well as Crawford will lead them that far, but they could be in trouble with the turnover this roster has had. If Chicago stumbles there is plenty of teams in the western conference who are ready to take their spot.
The Blackhawks have had a pretty successful off-season, the names they have landed both prospects and NHLers are good but they still have plenty of questions and locking the Blackhawks in the playoffs is a mistake with the depth of the western conference.
