Will he be back next year?
Part 1 is below. To continue...
So the Hawks have serious salary cap problems and it’s the end of the world, the sky is falling, etc…
It’s not completely doom and gloom though. A lot of teams wish they would have a core of Toews, Kane, Hossa, Keith and Seabrook locked up. Still, it takes more than 5 guys in hockey to be an elite team, and that’s what Hawks fans want. At least the team is being marketed as an elite team before they’ve won anything, but that’s another rant for another day.
Were there mistakes made by Tallon and management? Fuck yes. Are there ways to fix it? Yes, and management can go a long way into solving some of these problems. How willing they will be to potentially eat $11-14 million in contracts remains to be seen. If Rocky is truly serious about wanting a winner, he’s going to have to consider this option and probably act on it.
So what’s the plan? The following needs to be considered:
1) The Hawks’ most near NHL-ready prospects are on the wing. Prospects are another way of saying cheap, serviceable players with the potential to outplay their cap number.
2) The Hawks are going to need either a 2C or a 3C, depending on how you characterize Bolland. This will have to come either via a trade of the “secondary core 7” or via free agency.
3) The Hawks can’t afford to ice a deep group of forwards and a pretty good D-core without saving money in net.
4) It will be very difficult to find a taker for Huet or Sopel via trade. I’m not saying it’s impossible as who knows, maybe there is a Mike MIlbury out there. Any trade involving these two is going to require some serious sweetener for the other side (hello Patrick Sharp, Kris Versteeg or Dustin Byfuglien). Is it worth it to give up one of those 3 just to get rid of Huet? Depends on the deal I’d say.
5) Saving a couple hundred thousand here, and a couple hundred thousand there is going to go a long way to keep the Hawks together. Stan Bowman has to negotiate with all free agents by using the “anti-Tallon doctorine”, ie, not overpaying guys. This consideration will also manifest itself on the bottom 6 forwards and bottom 2 defencemen as you are more likely to see young, cheap prospects there as opposed to some of the pending RFAs who currently fill those positions.
6) It would be nice to have more than $200K in cap room when it’s all said and done. It would allow for flexibility and the ability to add an impact player or two at the trade deadline next year.
I’m going to assume a couple of things here as well:
1) The salary cap, based on what Glenn Healy said on the Hockey Night in Canada hotstove a couple weeks ago is going to be $57.7 million for the 2010-11 season.
2) That Rocky is not going to be open to burying the $11M remaining on Cristobal Huet’s contract in the minors. This is the magic card that makes this a lot easier, but I’m going to assume there are no magic acts for the purpose of coming up with my base roster. I will illustrate however on how burying Huet and saving the extra $2M could go a very long way in making this team better.
3) That said, Rocky will be a little more open to burying the $2 million actual ($2.3M cap hit) on Sopel’s contract.
4) That Stan is actually able to negotiate and not grossly overpay the free agents that are signed. This may be a big reach, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
5) I’d like to trade Kopecky and replace him with a player making $500K less, but fact is he’s probably not going anywhere as he's Hossa' BFF.
6) That despite having leverage over the Hawks knowing the Hawks have to cut salary, there are going to be a number of GMs interested in any of the “secondary core 7” that are available on the trade market. This fact will lead to competition between GMs to get their hands on any of these players and give the Hawks a chance to get a pretty decent return for any of them.
7) Lastly I’ll assume that nobody out there is trading for Cristobal Huet. Either that, or the Hawks think the “sweetener” route to getting rid of him is too expensive in terms of giving up a good player for nothing.
Given all that, Part 3 will outline how the Hawks ice a very good hockey team next year despite the cap issues.
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